After Happily Ever After
by elle45
Summary: Set after "Priority:Shepard", which in turn is set after the Reaper War. Shepard and the crew are trying to settle in to their new lives after the long war. But none of them ever prepared for peace, and their happy ending is plagued by doubts and uncertainties about the way to go forward in peacetime. Shenko and Talibrations, with plenty of comraderie and fluff for the whole crew!
1. Chapter 1

I don't own Mass Effect, any of it's characters or anything connected to it, and if I did it certainly would not have ended the way it did.

This story is set after my other post-war fic, "Priority: Shepard." It should be standalone but if it seems weird that's probably because it's a sequel.

Thanks for reading!

* * *

"Homey touches," Shepard muttered, staring around her cabin. Their cabin, actually. Kaidan seemed to think that sharing the captain's cabin, officially, was some sort of milestone in their relationship. At the time it sounded great. After what happened on the Citadel, and after months of not knowing if she'd ever see him or the rest of the crew again, she was pretty happy to wake up every morning in his arms. That was certainly a perk.

What she hadn't realized was his stuff would be coming with him.

Shepard tended to travel light. When she joined up from Earth the day she turned eighteen she'd brought exactly three things with her. And in the chaos of the past few years she'd lost all those little sentimental bits and pieces. Her old dog tags were the only dead weight she hauled around. Except the pets. And the collection of photographs. But really, Liara kept track of the photos for her. Her copies kept getting blown up.

The Normandy was currently parked on the lawn outside Kaidan's family orchard. She saw now where she'd miscalculated. Kaidan had suggested, oh so innocently, that they take his mother home and use the orchard to hide out from the news crews for a few days. His mother, her eyes shining as she hung on his arm, enthusiastically endorsed this plan. Liara had wanted to see a real Earth farm, she was hoping for some green spaces to ease her heart after the long war. And then Tali said she wanted to see it too because she was going to have to be a farmer. And Joker didn't want to be left out. And neither did Cortez, who had come to see the Normandy crew's return. And if those pendejos were going then James was going too. Garrus, to her great surprise, said that Palaven had waited this long for him and it could wait a little longer- he wanted to see where his old friend grew up. Maybe he didn't want to be left out either. With a wide and trembling smile Kaidan's mother had assured them all of the hospitality of their home and that was that.

It took Kaidan maybe forty minutes after their arrival at his old family orchard to fill "their" cabin with his little "homey touches."

An entire library of data disks crammed the wall of her office. A lot of the texts were technical manuals and high-brow war time analyses, but a lot of them were fiction too. Hero stories. She remembered him saying he liked those when he was a kid, and she wasn't surprised he still did it was just. . . there were so many. A real dead fish mounted on a freaking hunk of wood was taking up space on the wall of her state-of-the-art spaceship. And his photos, of his father and his mom, were arranged among her model ships like the ships were just some elaborate frame for them. Not just photos of back home, they were photos of people long lost. A group of kids that looked like his crew from Brain Camp, pictures of Ashley and Jenkins and other crew from the original Normandy. A picture of her that she barely remembered taking. It was back when she still had her scars. Back before she died. A picture Ashley took, she thought. Anderson's photo from the day they gave him the original Normandy was up there in a place of honor. And then there were others, people she didn't know. His students, maybe. Maybe. All she knew was that looking at that wall made her unspeakably, unbearably sad.

But it was important to Kaidan, to have them there.

But she came to her cabin for refuge, not to be reminded of everything that had gone wrong.

She needed a drink.

More than that, she needed a drink by herself. She knew that if she asked, Kaidan would take every photo down. But what if that meant he didn't feel like their cabin was his home? It was so rare that he asked anything of her. And his smile, putting them up, had nearly split his face. She couldn't ask unless she was sure that was what she wanted. More than she wanted him to be happy. Crap.

The lounge of the Normandy was well-stocked when they left the Citadel after shore leave. It was less well stocked now. And, she noted with sharp annoyance, the lounge wasn't empty. She thought about turning around and just thinking it out in her cabin. But then she'd have to face all those photographs.

Tali was slumped over the bar in the lounge. This scene was familiar. A wry smile tugged at Shepard's lips. She'd found Tali almost exactly like this after that second mission to Horizon. Blasted infernal planet. What could be bothering the quarian this time?

"You keep coming down here, I'm going to start thinking you're some kind of lush," Shepard said. Tali started, and shook her head when she saw who it was. Shepard moved behind the bar. They had all the stuff for her favorite drink, a Full Biotic Kick, but those things reminded her of Kaidan. She wanted something else just now.

"Puh-lease," Tali said, her voice vibrating with drink and suppressed emotion. "You're the one with a bar and a pool table on her war ship."

"Yeah, I'm not sure why the Alliance left them in," Shepard said. Maybe Traynor's influence there, the comm specialist was very important to the retrofits. And she knew Traynor used to bartend in college. She wished Traynor were here now for just that reason. But the crew had dropped Traynor, and most of the other support staff, off on an Alliance base in the early stages of their risky journey home.

Tequila would be too extreme, wouldn't it? But wine not quite extreme enough. Experimentally Shepard filled a glass half full with vodka and half with a pinkish wine Miranda had liked. It wasn't the worst thing she'd ever drank, but it wasn't the best.

"Should you be drinking at all?" Tali asked, her voice concerned. "I know you're still in rehabilitation for your injuries."

"Yeah, no," Shepard said. She took another sip. "I really shouldn't. But I shouldn't have blown myself up in the first place, so. It's a little late to develop a self-preservation instinct."

"You'd better start thinking about doing exactly that," Tali said, "Or else please lock up your Major before he goes crazy on your behalf. Again. You didn't see what he was like when we were trying to get the data to fix your implants. I'm shocked we all made it home, I really am."

Christ. Shepard threw back the rest of her glass, gulping. But Tali had done the same. Shepard knew what part of that bit her ass, what was bothering Tali?

"Seriously," Shepard said. "Why are you down here? We've won. You've got your home planet back. Everything is sunshine and puppies from here on out. Or at least it damn well better be. What's the issue?"

Tali stared silently into her empty glass for a moment. Shepard hoped she wouldn't throw the question back in her face.

"I never thought I'd get this far," Tali mused. "I haven't planned for it. Keelah, I don't even know how to plan for it. It was the sight of all those farm outbuildings that did it. I can just picture Rannoch, little pieces of old spaceships converted into barns dotting the landscape. My people aren't agrarian, we haven't been for a long time. Even before we lost our planet. That was half the reason we invented the damn geth. We wanted them to handle the farming and manual labor while we focused on improving technology. On art. And instead, we became this."

"And now you have to become something else," Shepard said. She was facing a similar problem herself. Even banged up as she was, with all her new scars and aches and pains, she'd bet on herself against any back alley thug or batarian pirate in the galaxy. But that didn't mean she was fit for actual active duty. The place for her commanding ass was in a nice cushy chair up in the CIC while real soldiers did the fighting. Assuming, of course, that there was any fighting to be done. Peace was good, peace was the ideal. It was just. . . what the hell was she supposed to do with it?

Screw it. She poured herself another glass of the wine. But she skipped the vodka. It just made it taste bad.

"And Legion died for nothing," Tali snarled. Her voice vibrated in Shepard's very bones. She put the drink down, and laid her head in her hands. She'd done a pretty good job not thinking about the geth. About what happened to the geth when she destroyed the Reapers. Both women stood there in silence for a good long time. Finally Tali sighed, and shook herself as if shaking off dark thoughts. "Sorry. I don't blame you. And neither would Legion. The old machines are dead. Keelah Se'Lai."

"Is that still the right phrase?" Shepard said, trying desperately to lighten the mood. She hadn't come here for this. "You have your homeworld back. You can see it whenever you want."

Tali poured herself another drink, and fiddled with the straw. Emergency induction port, rather.

"Can I, Shepard?" she asked, softly. "Or maybe . . . should I? I've spent my whole adult life serving my people. I don't know how to do anything else. And I'm an Admiral. Whatever that's worth now. But. . . so many of the friends I would want to share the homeworld with are dead."

"Kal Reegar," Shepard said, nodding. Tali fitted the straw into the slot in her helmet and sipped her drink. "I always thought, the way he talked at your trial, the way he asked me to take care of you. . ."

"You thought we were lovers," Tali said. She laughed humorlessly. "Quarians don't just do that sort of thing whenever they feel the urge, you know. Our immune systems wouldn't let us. Reegar was a hero. But no. We were just friends."

"Sorry," Shepard said. Tali leaned back, tilting her head.

"Sorry I didn't take a lover from my old squad?" She'd never heard Tali actually sound angry before. Not at her. "I'm not like you, Shepard."

"Hey, how many of those have you had?" Shepard asked. Tali made a disapproving sound that, in a human, would have been a snort.

"Enough to have trouble fitting the emergency induction port in the slot," Tali said. "Not enough to feel better."

"I'm not sure there's ever enough to feel better," Shepard said. Tali sighed. "I never thought you'd be jealous of what I have with Kaidan. Or is it just because it's so much easier for humans?"

"It's nothing like that," Tali said. She leaned forward again, her elbows on the bar. "It's Garrus. All right? You collect high-ranking military geniuses the same way you collect ships. Riches beyond measure. And I don't even know what to do with the little bit of wealth I have."

Ok, whoa. She was definitely not drunk enough to be having this conversation.

But it sure beat talking about the dead.

"Let's get something straight." She put her glass down and drew herself up to her full height. "I never 'collected' Garrus. And Kaidan isn't some damn trophy, either."

"No, no," Tali said, waving her hand. "Not what I meant. But you don't have to spare my feelings, Shepard. I know how close you and Garrus were when we were going after the Collectors. And that's okay. I shouldn't have implied that it wasn't."

"We never. . ." Shepard cleared her throat. "Garrus is my best friend. That's all there is. What you remember, what we almost did. . . we never actually went through with it."

She still remembered the confusion on Garrus's face when she went from hitting on him to suggesting they just be friends. But the comraderie they shared had smoothed over that little lapse in judgement without a hiccup. If she hadn't been his commanding officer, if he hadn't seemed so unsure and torn, if she hadn't worried that hero worship was making up the difference between 'maybe' and 'yes', things might have gone differently. But he'd just given up on his pursuit of vengeance because she said so. She knew he'd do anything she asked. And she was terrified that he was just going along with it because, well, she was Commander Shepard. The legend. The icon. The commanding freaking officer.

So why hadn't she ever worried about that with Kaidan?

Crap. Maybe she was. Maybe that was at the root of this issue with the stupid photos. The things she said had this weight, even with the people closest to her. Crap, crap crap.

"Why in shexiah not?" Tali said. Shepard wasn't sure if her translator glitched or if that was just some quarian curse she wasn't familiar with. "If I could just take off my suit and jump on that turian without risking my stupid life I'd do it five times a day."

"I thought. . . um," Shepard said. Tali slammed her fist down on the counter.

"We did. But then I got sick, because of course I did, and he suddenly just wanted to talk and maybe cuddle with my suit on. Chivalrous bosh'tet," Tali swore.

"Um." That was all Shepard had for this one. Fortunately, Tali didn't seem to need her input to continue.

"And now I can just go home. And build a world. My world." Her voice softened and she slumped down into her folded arms on the bar counter. "And leave him behind. It's the smart thing to do. What kind of Admiral abandons her people to snuggle with some guy she saved the galaxy with?"

"Ah," Shepard said. "You have your people and he has his duty?"

It was a line from Tali's favorite vid, Fleet and Flotilla. A vid about a turian and a quarian in love, who couldn't be together because duty tore them apart. The parallels were obvious. Tali hit her head gently and repeatedly on the bar counter.

"I never even asked him," Tali said. "I want to make my decision first."

Shepard laughed. And then she drained the rest of her glass in one long swallow. The wine sat uneasily in her stomach with the vodka.

"I know what you mean," she said. "We're better at killing Reapers than talking to the menfolk, that's for sure."

"Menfolk," Tali said scornfully. Shepard wasn't sure if she was unhappy about the men themselves or just the terminology. Either way she didn't raise her head from the counter. "I'm going to have to learn about livestock, Shepard."

"I won't tell Garrus that your mind made that leap," Shepard promised.

"Livestock," Tali repeated. "And breeding. And plants. Keelah, the plants. Rannoch is practically a desert now because we weren't there to carry the seeds. I'm an engineer, Shepard."

"So maybe you build agricultural machinery now instead of ships and guns," Shepard said. Tali looked up at last. Her bright eyes were narrow behind her mask.

"I could," she said, slowly. "I could make a tour of agricultural facilities and learn about the equipment they use. Everyone uses agricultural machinery now. And I would be useful without having to grub in the dirt like some human gardener."

"Thanks," Shepard said, sarcastically. "So that's you sorted, as Traynor would say. What about me?"

"You can biotically rush mountains to make new tunnels for mines," Tali suggested. Shepard laughed, but Tali just raised her voice and continued. "It's got to be easier than headbutting krogan!"

"Oh man, it would be, too." Shepard's face felt sore and unaccustomed to stretching into a smile. It had been a long time since laughter was frequent. Maybe there would be perks to this whole peace thing. "But they want me to be an Ambassador. Hackett wants me to make sure the treaties we cobbled together for the Reaper War don't disintegrate into chaos."

"So you're headed to Tuchanka after this," Tali said. "Say hi to Wrex for me."

"Yeah, yeah," Shepard said. "It might not be that simple. The turians and asari took heavy losses and they're both petitioning the new council for access to new worlds and resources. The salarians want the krogan and the rachni to sign these insulting treaties about how fast they can breed. And the rachni are still just barely trustworthy, so no one wants them around for long. But everyone wants their help rebuilding mass relays. The galaxy's still a mess."

"And that's not even taking the agriculture into account," Tali said. The quarian engineer could certainly have a one-track mind. "There will be food shortages next. Half the garden worlds in the galaxy got burned one way or another."

"Maybe Liara will have some thoughts on how to mitigate that," Shepard hoped. "We've got a pretty good sized cargo hold. Maybe we can even help."

"The Normandy's hold isn't that big, Shepard," Tali said. She was probably right.

"Then I hope your people aren't dismantling their fleet yet," she said. "Because we might need those ships to carry food from the places where it's plentiful to the places it isn't."

"That's a thought," Tali said. "Actually, I should go talk to the home fleet about that now. Before that gets buried under a heap of other ideas and problems."

Tali slid backwards off the bar stool and stood clutching the counter so she wouldn't fall down. After a moment she stepped back, more sure of her balance. Shepard moved to help. Just then, the door opened.

Garrus himself came through. Tali wobbled. Something like a turian smile flickered across Garrus's mandible.

"There you both are. The Alenko clan would like your help in the kitchen, Shepard. I barely escaped with my life," Garrus said. Tali wobbled again.

"No one," Shepard said with conviction, "could ever need my help in any kitchen. Who really sent you?"

"I'm serious," Garrus said. "They want your help taste testing these concoctions they're brewing up. Something about needing a third opinion. Kaidan and his mother are both trying to cook about forty dishes with something they call apples, and James and Cortez keep disagreeing about whether or not the ingredients they're substituting for the things they can't get right now are working. Joker and Liara refuse to take part. So I was sent to find you."

"And me?" Tali asked. Her voice was a little fainter than usual like she wasn't sure she even wanted to ask that question.

"No, you I just wanted to find on my own recognizance," Garrus said with that flicker of a smile again. "We brought a lot of dextro food with us from Gangarin Station, and I know your palate is more refined than mine. I thought we might try to elbow into the kitchen and set up a feast of our own."

"That sounds. . . very nice, Vakarian," Tali said. "I just need to use the comm room for a minute first. Shepard and I had an idea about upcoming food shortages that I need to talk to Auntie Raan about."

"There's certainly no shortage here," Garrus muttered. "But I see what you mean. I'll go with you."

Tali nodded assent and led the way out of the lounge. She and Garrus went off to the comm room, and Shepard was left with nothing to do but go join the Alenkos in their farm kitchen. Kaidan and his mom were probably disagreeing about what ingredients to substitute for what. And they wanted her to settle the argument. Well, she'd done the same for the krogan, the turians, the quarians, and the tragic geth. What was one more?

There was no reason to be nervous. Or nauseous. Really.


	2. Chapter 2

I do not own Mass Effect, or any of its characters or locations or like, literally anything.

Thank you for reading!

* * *

Night wind gusted cool against her skin. How long since she'd just relaxed and felt the wind? It moved differently through the soft fabric of her civvies in a way it never could through armor. It seemed to caress every part of her. Like Earth was welcoming her home.

Argos was waiting for her at the bottom of the ramp. He was Kaidan's father's massive wolf hound. She remembered when the Alenko clan got him, actually, because it happened right after Eden Prime. She'd come into the mess to find Ashley laughing and shaking her head at something Kaidan said. And back then, it seemed so impossibly long ago, she'd actually had to suppress a stab of jealousy. She'd asked what the joke was, and Kaidan had told her that his father just got a new pedigreed wolfhound and named it Argos in honor of his son. Ashley had to explain the joke to her. She didn't remember what it was but she knew it had something to do with an ancient Earth poem about a wandering soldier. Kaidan's father's little way to remind his son that he was expected to return home no matter how long it took.

Well, he'd made it. That had to count for something, right?

Argos stretched and rose to his feet. He was almost as big as Shepard. Almost twice as tall as a varren. Intelligent dark eyes studied her from beneath a mop of dirty-looking gray fur. She was sure he couldn't possibly be as filthy as he looked. Kaidan's mom wouldn't stand for that.

"Were you waiting for me?" she asked him. His tail wagged slowly. She had to suppress a twinge of fear, ancient and irrational. Wild dogs roamed the streets of the slums where she'd grown up. Where she ran with the Reds. They were as much a hazard in her youth as cold, heat, fire, and hostile strangers. She'd once seen a wild dog rip a little boy's throat out. But Argos was a pet. Tame. Right?

She walked past him without petting him and headed for the farmhouse. Argos fell into step beside her. This part of British Columbia didn't look nearly as ravaged as London. It wasn't the green paradise Kaidan described, but it wasn't a slice of hell either. The farmhouse looked a palace to Shepard's eyes. It rose three full stories and sprawled in several directions. The front entryway was grand, picked out with deep red bricks. She didn't go in the front door. That entryway was cold and sterile, and probably locked, and almost certainly dark. She went in the back door by the kitchens. It was a smaller entrance, and much less imposing. But as soon as she opened the door she was hit with a wall of light and sound that made her flinch into a wide grin.

Joker and Cortez were playing cards on the low table over by the entrance, near the big sofa. Liara sat next to them reading a data pad. The three of them seemed embroiled in a hotly contested debate about something called a Johnny Appleseed, whatever that was. Liara's reading did not keep her from firing off arguments in rapid response to Joker's prodding. Past the sofa there was a counter where people could sit and where, on the other side, people could prepare food. It was the outer edge of the kitchen. She'd had something similar in her Citadel apartment. But this kitchen was vibrantly red and white. Little ceramic tiles lined the floor and walls between the cabinets. It was, to her eye, an enormous kitchen. Kaidan's mother had referred to it as the "summer kitchen" and suggested using it to prepare food for everyone, since the regular kitchen didn't have room for all the extra people. James was seated at the counter arguing cooking techniques with Kaidan. But Kaidan stopped mid-sentence when he saw her come in. Their eyes met, and he stopped everything to just smile at her for a moment. Like the world stopped turning.

And then his smile widened into a grin and he beckoned her over.

"Shepard can solve this for us," he said. Oh, crap. Well at least she wasn't supposed to get between him and his mother. Elizabeth Alenko was on the far wall watching over something on the stovetop. Kaidan was chopping apples, onions, and carrots on the counter opposite James.

"Solve what?" she said. She smiled at the card players in passing and went to stand next to James at the counter. Argos followed her right inside. He turned around three times at James' feet and then laid down. She would have expected such a big dog to take up a lot of space but instead he just curled into a tiny ball with his head on his feet.

"Your boyfriend thinks apple fritters are a kind of fried breaded apple thing," James said. He crossed his massive arms over his chest. "Everyone knows they're like donuts, but just with pieces of apple in them."

"What makes either of you think that I have a line on what makes an apple fritter?" Shepard said.

"You've had apple fritters before, right?" Kaidan slid a plate of golden brown rings over to her. "Taste these and tell me if these are apple fritters. Vega here thinks these are something else entirely."

Her stomach clenched uncomfortably. Eating right now was either the only way to soak up those ill-advised drinks, or the worse idea anyone had ever had. Only by testing it would she know which one it was.

At least these smelled good. The fried ring felt gritty under her hand. When she bit into it, she could taste the sharp sweetness of the apple, the warm tang of the fried breading, the sugar that had been dusted on it while it was piping hot. She closed her eyes to savor the first food she'd had in months, _months_ , that Kaidan cooked. The first food she'd had in months that didn't come out of a reddi-pack or a restaurant. It seemed wrong somehow. Like when spacers first felt the wind on their face and panicked, instead of relaxing into the sensation.

"Jeez, Lola, people are watching," Vega muttered. She opened her eyes in time to see Kaidan swat at him with a dish towel. Those two had obviously gotten closer while they were on their long journey home. Vega ducked like the towel was a real threat, which made her grin.

"Well, they're delicious," she said. Her eyes met Kaidan's and she knew he was thinking exactly what she was thinking. Celebrating was good, celebrating with these beloved friends was better than good. But a part of her was just counting the minutes until she could be alone with him. And, she saw, he was doing the exact same thing.

"But are they apple fritters?" Kaidan asked. She just smiled.

"I don't know. Honest." But then she turned to James. "But if you think I'm going to do anything, anything at all, to antagonize Kaidan when he's on a cooking streak you've got bugs for brains. I haven't had a real home-cooked meal since we had shore leave on the Citadel."

"Really?" Kaidan said, frowning. He turned to his mom. "Ma, you never had Shepard over for dinner?"

"I had to travel to her, dear, she only recently finished enough of her rehabilitation to travel," Elizabeth Alenko said. She didn't seem at all ruffled by the disapproval in her son's voice. "And we both had other priorities. We did go out to dinner several times in the city."

"That's good, loco, it means Shepard hasn't seen your baby pictures yet," Vega said. Kaidan swatted at him with the towel again. "Actually, Mrs. A, where are those baby pictures?"

"Watch it, Vega," Kaidan growled.

But his mother answered without even turning around or changing tone, "What do I get out of it?"

"A ticket to the gun show?" Vega asked. Kaidan growled, wordlessly. The big N7 marine just grinned and leaned out of swatting range. "Got any repairs you want done around here?"

"Come to think of it, yes," Elizabeth Alenko said. "Cerberus troops blew up a depot not far from here, and the fire spread out to our south fields. I've got a lot of salvage work to do out there. And I think some parts of the roof may need patching."

"Ma, I'll patch the roof," Kaidan said, a little desperately. She didn't turn around or otherwise acknowledge him. A calculating look flashed over Kaidan's features. "Liara? I don't suppose you'd have any embarrassing information on James Vega?"

"Of course, Kaidan," Liara said. She glanced over her shoulder at the lot of them. "I have embarrassing information on each and every one of you. But I don't have any chores for you to earn it with. Not right now."

"What do you have on me?" Shepard said, diverted. Liara's smile grew smug.

"That would be telling," the asari said.

"Yeah, telling is what I want," Shepard said. But Liara didn't rise to the bait. So she tried Mrs. Alenko. "Elizabeth, you'd show me any photos I wanted to see, wouldn't you?"

"Of course I would, dear." Her voice never did change. Shepard hadn't ever thought of herself or her crew as childish before. Maybe they just didn't hang out with enough of their elders to really get that perspective.

"Okay, you don't want to get into the apple fritter argument. I can respect that." James held his hands up as if to concede a point. She'd thought they were past this, but apparently he was going to beat this argument to death. It was the debate over biotics versus physical prowess all over again. "But loco over here is trying to make a pig roast without the pig. That's just not right."

"It's vat protein," Kaidan explained to Shepard. He went back to slicing apples. "Closest thing we have to real ham. Well, except for the dextro bacon. Which I'm making in addition to the rest of this because Tali and Garrus deserve to be part of this feast too."

"Garrus mentioned something about making dextro food," she said. Kaidan shrugged.

"Soon as he gets back, sure. But James here, he's gone all purist on me. Apparently he forgot that the eggs in his heuvos rancheros are powdered."

"Hey, but they didn't come out of a vat," James said. "Vat protein's got no flavor. In a real roast the flavor goes both ways. Apples make the ham taste good, ham makes the apples taste good. We're just gonna end up with limp apples."

"There's not a lot of ham lying around Earth right now," Kaidan said. "Or anywhere else for that matter. Vat protein is what we've got. Deal with it."

"Psssh." Vega waved this off. But he didn't pursue the argument. Kaidan put the apples and vegetables in a big black pan, covered it, then put the whole thing in the oven.

"I hate to think of you eating reddi-pack food while recovering from those injuries," Kaidan said. "Wish I could have helped."

"You can help now," she said. The corner of his mouth ticked up.

"Yeah, well, as long as we're here I can. Sure. But back on the Normandy? We'll have to see," he said. "It'll depend what kinds of supplies we can requisition. But instant meals take up a lot less space. You get a lot more nutrition per pound."

"Oh, the wonders of military life," Shepard intoned. "Don't worry too much. There was a nice veggie curry stand right near my rehab center. I got my vegetables."

"It's a good thing Hackett wants me for the Alliance, not the Normandy," Vega said. His smile at the two of them was small and wry. "Watching you two make googly eyes isn't my idea of a good time."

"You're just jealous," Cortez added from the couch. "Shep has good taste, yeah?"

"Boys, I'm standing right here," Elizabeth Alenko said. "And that's my son. Kindly refrain from barracks talk while you're in my kitchen."

She turned around and set the hot pan on the counter. It was tile, it could take the heat. The apples in the pan were coated in brown sauce and soft from the heat. She spooned out a bowl full and, deftly avoiding James' attempt at a grab, handed it to Shepard. She fished out a fork and handed it over as well.

"There, dear. These will perk you right up. I'm sure your leg is bothering you after all that flying around today," Elizabeth said. Kaidan started in surprise and looked from one of them to the other suspiciously, but his mother ignored him. Shepard wished she could. It was true. Her injuries were mostly healed, but not entirely. The unease in her stomach had distracted her from the pain in her leg, and back, and shoulder. But they did hurt. It was just a little pain, though, really. She could deal with pain. She just wished it wasn't so completely constant. "I wish we had some nice vanilla ice cream to go on top, but with the war. . . well. We still had some brown sugar and the good whiskey. Whiskey apples will get any soldier back on their feet."

Shepard smiled at her. Elizabeth's maternal ideas were entirely irresistible. She could see a lot of Kaidan in his mother. Or was that the other way around? She took a bite, obediently. And then another just because the damn things were so delicious. Soft and chewy, the apples tasted like cinnamon, whiskey, and hot butter. And they were sweet enough that she knew she'd be riding a sugar high all the way to forgetting about her aches and pains. If she didn't throw it all up first.

"God, that's good," Shepard said. Elizabeth smiled in genuine pleasure. It was the same smile Kaidan had when he was happy, and Shepard couldn't help but smile back. "If we stay here too long I won't fit into my armor anymore."

"Good," Elizabeth said. "Can't wear the damn thing anyway."

"True," Shepard smiled. But Kaidan was looking at her in renewed and horrified concern, so she added, "At least not yet."

"I'd like to try those," Liara said, coming over from the couch. Cortez started to get up too, but was roped back into the card game with an acerbic comment from Joker. Apparently they had some cash riding on the game. Figured. The asari took a fork from one of the drawers- trust Liara to note where the silverware was kept on her very first visit - and speared an apple out of the bowl. Then she made a face, and froze, and then tried to smile encouragingly. It didn't come out right.

"Not to your taste?" Elizabeth suggested gently.

"More for me?" Shepard teased. Liara swallowed, ruefully.

"I'm afraid that is a little sweeter than I'm used to," she admitted. "Much like the apple fritters. I am sorry, Elizabeth. I hate to be the picky eater."

Elizabeth spooned out three more bowls, shaking her head in denial of Liara's statement. She handed one bowl to James, and gestured for Shepard to take the other two over to the card players.

"I wouldn't worry about it, Liara," Elizabeth said. "It's a miracle of evolution we can eat each other's food at all."

"I'm afraid that isn't a general asari preference," Liara said ruefully. "It's just me. I find that my hips are all too eager to grow. My mother's genetics. I'd rather stay slim enough to fit in standard armor."

"Nothing wrong with it, Blue," James said, appreciatively. Shepard grabbed the two bowls from the counter and rolled her eyes. Liara turned to James and eyed him speculatively. Shepard didn't stay to see what James' habitual flirting would get him this time.

"I've changed my mind, Kaidan," she heard Liara say behind her. "I can think of a few ways for you to earn Mr. Vega's embarrassing secrets."

Shepard took the two bowls over to the low table and set them down. Joker nodded at her in acknowledgement, but his closed expression never changed. Cortez smiled beatifically, though.

"These smell wonderful," Cortez said. "I always was a dessert guy. I like this place. Dessert first, then dinner, then drinks."

"Yeah, you just get drunk enough to lose big at cards," Joker said. It was a weak joke, but he was trying. Shepard smiled at him encouragingly. Of all of them, Joker had lost the most. His father, his sister, Edi. . . She still hadn't told him how his sister had died. She probably never would. The report that crossed her desk about the asari in Huerta Memorial was for Specters only. Edi probably knew. But if Edi hadn't told him . . . well, she certainly didn't see any profit in it. Joker's sister was dead and no amount of grief or rage could change that.

If she could do anything in the world to help him grow out of his shocky sullen grief, she would. Maybe flying the Normandy around would be medicine to his soul. Soon, she promised him silently.

"You should give the apples a try, Joker," she said, gently. His eyes narrowed at this hint of pity. So she said, "Put some meat on those bird bones."

"Huh," Joker said. "You seem to be putting on enough meat for the both of us, Commander. Rehab not as much exercise as you're used to?

That was more like it.

Argos growled softly behind her. An alarm. Every nerve in Shepard's body tingled with adrenaline. Suddenly, none of the aches or nausea even registered. The world got slow. Argos was off like a shot, out the back door and into the night. Without pausing to think, she followed him.

Was is husks? Deep blue bodies glowing with Reaper tech like freak Christmas lights? Was it Cerberus? The last gasp of a dying organization, come to kill the first human Specters? Or something new, something else?

 _Ready for anything._

She'd been ready for anything for so long that the emergency protocols were ingrained, automatic, undeniable. She crouched next to the back door. Ready to spring into action. Waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Alive to the faintest scents, and sounds, and slivers of movement in the night.


	3. Chapter 3

I do not own Mass Effect, and I don't own anything connected to it.

* * *

"Get off, you racist mop varren!" Tali's voice split the darkness. Shepard blinked, and sucked in a deep breath. It was Tali and Garrus. Her eyes scanned the dark fields. No major movement. Nothing to suggest that this peaceful summer night was going to erupt into anything more dangerous. Nothing at all.

But in her experience that just meant the deadly dangers could get a few shots in with the element of surprise.

"Get down," Garrus said, in that tone he used when he was commanding troops. Argos whined. She saw the problem, now that her eyes had adjusted. It wasn't, as Tali's outburst might have indicated, that the quarian was actually under attack. It was just that Argos was leaning against her, pinning her to the side of the Normandy. Like a canine command-and-contain unit.

The door opened behind her and Kaidan came out, dusting off his hands. He shot her a look she couldn't read in the dim light. Liara was fast on his heels, and so was James. She'd led out a veritable parade.

"Argos," Kaidan said. His voice was deep, rumbling, appallingly confident. A command voice. "Friendlies."

In that moment, he reminded her so much of Anderson that she had to blink to make sure it was still really Kaidan standing in front of her. She could almost smell the Vancouver port, that downed gunship, the stench of the first Cannibals she'd encountered. She could almost feel the hot metal under her bruised knees.

But she wasn't there. She was kneeling in the soft earth outside Kaidan's mother's back door. She took a deep, shaky breath, and rose to her feet. Liara's worried eyes tracked her movement. Her leg started to give, a little, so she leaned against the wall. Better than falling on her face. Kaidan would hover like a mother hen for months if she actually fell down. Maybe Liara, too.

Argos snuffed and let Tali go. He trotted over to Kaidan and sat at his feet, tongue lolling. Kaidan ruffled his ears to let him know that yes, he did do a good job. Tali muttered several things that sounded like quarian curses while she tried to brush the dog hair off her enviro-suit.

"Keep talking like that, Kaidan, and I might let you direct my troops," Garrus said. It was so strange to see him out of his armor. Like seeing a turtle out of its shell.

"Thanks, but I've got my own to worry about," Kaidan said. He made a hand gesture and Argos laid down at his feet. "What the hell, Shepard? I didn't think you could move that fast anymore."

"I thought something was wrong," Shepard said. She crossed her arms over her chest. Could she pass off leaning against the wall as sulking, instead of seeking physical support? "Damn dog acted like Cerberus was lighting up the front lawn."

"He's never met a quarian before," Kaidan explained.

"And he's not likely to meet one again. Not with that bad hospitality," Tali muttered. "I swear it's like this whole planet is full of pests. Bugs and dogs and cats and birds. . ."

"Palaven has a lot of wildlife, too," Garrus said. Shepard wasn't sure if that was in support of Earth, or an opening volley in a campaign to get Tali to come home with him. "Though I bet it has less now, what with the near extinction of all life as we know it."

"Bugs are one thing we don't need to import on Rannoch," Tali said, largely ignoring him. "Maybe dogs are a second thing."

"Kaidan," Liara broke in, "Do I smell something burning?"

With a muffled curse, Kaidan spun and beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen. Liara sidled around him and leaned against the wall next to Shepard, their shoulders touching. Then she leaned her head in to whisper against Shepard's ear.

"Can you actually walk?" she asked, in tones almost certain not to carry. Shepard snorted a laugh.

"Generally, or right this second?" she asked in the same faint whisper. Liara's mouth tightened. Apparently she didn't think it was as funny as Shepard did.

"Oi, you two sharing secrets now?" James asked, sidling over. "No fair."

"Just telling Shepard the secret of your scrambled eggs," Liara said. James' eyes narrowed. "It's cheese."

"I don't put cheese in my eggs," James said. Shepard rolled her eyes.

"Don't act like that was actually secret." Experimentally she rolled her hips off the wall. That worked okay. She should probably sit down, though. She hadn't realized how many muscles she needed just to stay upright and balanced until half of them had to be reknitted. "Come on. They're cheesy eggs. Cheesy like your flirting."

"Leave the poor man with some dignity, Shepard," Garrus said. Tali stepped wide around Argos, who watched her pass with big hound eyes. "I seem to recall something that was supposed to be eggs nearly catching the mess on fire? Sprinklers going, alarms blaring. . ."

"Smoke billowing into all my precision equipment . . ." Tali muttered. Shepard grinned at both of them. It felt so good to be teased again. During the long months when she was stuck healing on Earth and her squad was trying to get back home she'd missed that desperately. Everyone she'd met on Earth mostly said _yes Commander, no Commander,_ or _Now Ms. Shepard, you know that leg needs more work before you put weight on it_. Pah.

"Yeah, you think you can do better? Prove it," Shepard said. She jerked a thumb back at the kitchen. "There's a fridge full of dextro food in there. Half full, anyway. Tali can tell me if you're as good a cook as you claim."

"All I have to do to do better than you is not catch the pan on fire," Garrus said. He leaned back and folded his arms over his chest. "You might not be on your sharply honed edge anymore but I think you'd still notice _that_."

"Ha ha," Shepard muttered. She shifted more weight onto her left leg. It held. When she'd asked how long she would have to baby it like this the doctor had given her the strangest look. And then he'd told her that he wasn't going to try and tell Commander freaking Shepard what she could and couldn't do, but maybe she shouldn't think of it as a guaranteed result. Which she took to mean that if he were a little less in awe of her legend he'd have told her she would have to baby the leg forever.

No more running. No more precision jumps. No more split-second decisions in hand to hand combat. No more rolling around and diving in an out of cover. No more squatting behind cover, ready to shoot. No. She was a sitter now. A sitter and a leaner.

And she should have remembered that before she started crouching in doorways.

She tried putting her full weight on the leg, and her knee bent without her telling it to. She might really fall.

Oh, to hell with it.

"You guys go on inside," Shepard said. "Liara and I will catch up with you."

She wanted to be teased, not coddled.

"Okay, Scars. Sparks. You ready to show me how to cook with dextro food?" James said, heartily. The three of them went inside without objection. That was trust. Pure and simple.

"It's not like you to hide a problem like that," Liara said mildly.

"Sure is, if it's not something that's going to get better," Shepard said. She clenched her teeth. She would not whine, damnit. "I'm incredibly lucky to have the left leg. If Miranda hadn't been there I'd be stumping around on a prosthetic."

"If Miranda hadn't been there, you'd be dead," Liara said. She gave Shepard a sideways glance. "I don't know how much of the last few months you remember. But your cybernetic implants, the ones that kept you moving, they were working erratically. It was very touch and go for a long time there."

"Yeah. I read the report." Though she hadn't nerved herself up to watching the videos of her surgery. Surgeries. "I'm a lucky woman."

"You certainly are," Liara agreed. "So why not just say you shouldn't have crouched down like that? Why not say that you're still very weak?"

"A split second of doubt can cost lives. I don't want them to doubt me," Shepard said. As soon as she said it, she realized what it really was. And she had to laugh. Liara's lips turned up slightly in that enigmatic way she had. "But that doesn't matter, does it? War's over. And I'm not the leader of the best take-down team anymore. It doesn't matter if they follow my orders. I'm not. . ."

"Don't take it too far, Shepard," Liara said. She pushed off the wall and stood between Shepard and the dark fields. "We'll all listen to you. We respect you. But not in combat, no. So you're right. You're not our battle leader anymore. There's room to question, room to doubt. We can all take a moment and discuss our options instead of blindly obeying."

"I've never been anything but a soldier," Shepard said, quietly. Liara smiled, a real big smile, and laid a fond hand on her arm.

"I disagree," the asari said. "But I know what you mean. I was never anything but an archaeologist, either. And now I'm something else. You will be too. Give it time."

"Probably would have been simpler to die on the Citadel," Shepard said, and she sighed. Liara's smile faded.

"Simpler, maybe. But not better," she said. She wrapped an arm around Shepard's waist in support. "Can you stand up, or do you still need a minute?"

"I can stand," Shepard said. She tried to take a step. Liara had to catch her. It wasn't that the leg buckled completely. It wasn't that weak. It was just weaker than the right leg and a hell of a lot weaker than she was used to. It messed with her balance. But she knew that if she went slowly enough she could make it to the couch inside without Liara's support. So she moved out on her own, with a tap on Liara's hand in thanks. And when she got inside she sank down next to Joker.

"It's not Reapers again, is it?" Joker said. "Cuz I'd be super pissed if we went through all that just to have them pop back up like a, well, like a you."

"Like a me?" Shepard asked. Joker shifted so she could see his eyes under the brim of his hat. His pain lines were deeper now, the circles under his eyes darker.

"A zombie brought back from the dead by a terrorist organization," Joker explained. "Wouldn't have to be Cerberus. But it could be. The Illusive Man wouldn't stop at bringing those squid suckers back if he thought they'd advance the cause of humanity or whatever."

"Well, he's dead. So that's a moot point," Shepard said. Joker tilted his head at her and sat back. His questioning look invited her to continue, so she did. "I wasn't sure if you got the report or not. He shot himself in the head. Right there in the command terminal."

"He was a cyborg, you know," Joker said, quietly. "Half tech. Maybe he could have survived?"

"No," Shepard said. "Trust me."

 _All the synthetic life in the galaxy is dead, Joker._

She absolutely would not say that to him. Wouldn't rub salt in the wound. Edi's death was too fresh.

Kaidan sauntered over to the couch and flopped down on the other side of Shepard. He snagged her in under his arm and suddenly she was curled against his chest. He was very warm, very solid. The scent of him enveloped her, and she had to close her eyes. It was like coming home.

"I've been kicked out of my own kitchen," Kaidan said. "No room. My own mother shooed me out."

"You can learn to cook dextro food any time on that war ship of yours," Elizabeth Alenko said. She leveled a spoon at her son threateningly. "I don't get so many chances. And I'm not getting any younger, am I?"

"Ma, come on," Kaidan said. His hand tightened on Shepard's shoulder. "I've been back on Earth one day."

"I didn't say I wanted grand children right this second," Elizabeth said. "I said I wanted them before I got too old and gray to pick them up. You're not getting any younger either, you know."

"Thanks, Ma," Kaidan muttered. On her other side, Joker whooped with laughter. It was the first honestly delighted laugh she'd heard from him in a long time. Shepard leaned back enough to look at Kaidan's reddening face.

"Something I should know?" she asked, mildly. Kaidan swallowed hard before he answered. She primly ignored Cortez's quiet attempt to get Liara to bet on her reaction to the next words out of his mouth.

"Ma wrote me while you were sick on Earth," Kaidan explained. "Several times."

"And?" She prompted. Kaidan sighed.

"Oh, you two must have talked about children. I'm not some crazy old lady coming in with something shocking out of nowhere," Elizabeth said.

"We really haven't," Shepard assured her. "But I guess we could talk about it. There's a lot of krogan babies who would need adopting."

That got Kaidan's full attention. She hadn't intended her comment to put the wind up him, but his eyes got wider than she'd ever seen and he seemed to choke on his breath for a moment. When he could breathe again, he said, "We are _not_ adopting krogan!"

"I'll adopt some krogan with you, Shepard," Garrus offered. The look Tali gave him for that one was colder than the poles of Noveria, but Garrus didn't seem to notice. He was busy chopping something. He also didn't notice the look that Elizabeth gave him. Would Shepard have to explain, later, that he hadn't meant to imply they were going to start their own family? Probably. "We could start up a Vakarian Shepard Orphanage. Really pass those combat skills down into the next generation. Or five. Krogan live for freaking ever."

"The Shepard-Vakarian Orphanarium," Shepard mused. Kaidan rolled his eyes, and she snuggled in closer, grinning. "It sounds wonderful. We could take in krogan, and asari, and really make legends of ourselves."

"And what would I be doing while you two were running this orphanarium?" Kaidan asked, the fierce blush fading from his cheeks.

"Biotics training, of course," Shepard said. " _And_ cooking."

"If we could talk Tali into doing some tech training we'd have ourselves a school for the ages," Garrus said. Tali sighed, heavily, and handed him a block of some kind of dextro protein.

"I'm not sure you could afford my rates, Vakarian," she said. "And I'm less sure that any of that's what Mrs. Alenko had in mind."

"Well no," Elizabeth admitted. But she looked at Shepard in fresh speculation. If Shepard weren't so warm and comfortable she might have been nervous about that speculation. "But then nothing has ever gone the way I pictured it so far. Why would it start now? And krogan babies are so cute."

"Cute?" Tali said, in disbelief. "They're like rocks with teeth."

"Fat, smiling rocks with teeth," Elizabeth corrected this. "I saw a vid about Tuchanka's rebirth during the war. Beautiful planet, if you like deserts."

"That must have been some vid," James muttered. "I'll have to check that out myself. Anything that makes that place look pretty. . ."

"I hear you," Kaidan sighed. He dropped a kiss on the top of Shepard's head. "Okay, Cortez. Deal me in?"

"Sure thing, Major," Cortez said. He gathered the deck up and reshuffled it. "Shepard, you want in on this?"

"Nope," she said. She absolutely did not want to move an inch from where she was sitting. "I'm good."

"Deal me in, too," Liara said. Cortez started laying out cards on the low table.

Shepard didn't catch much of the game. She just closed her eyes and let herself drift. She was warm, and safe, and surrounded by the circle of Kaidan's arm and the warmth of his body. The voices of the people she loved most floated past her ears. Quiet voices, laughing voices, the voices of people who weren't afraid.

For the first time in years and years Shepard began to think that everything might be okay.


	4. Chapter 4

I don't own Mass Effect or anything else connected to it. Thank you for reading!

* * *

"Should we wake her?" An ironic bass rumble, tinged with that metallic turian tone. If Garrus was amused then either everything was on fire or everything was completely fine.

"Nuh-uh. Absolutely not." Kaidan's voice rumbled out from under her cheek. She took a deep breath, floating up toward consciousness out of this soft warmth. "I'll just carry her to bed. She's a lot lighter without the armor. Should be easy."

Waking up, her neck and back started to twinge. Whatever she'd done, wherever she'd fallen asleep, it was a super bad idea. She was going to pay for it. It was easier to shrug off bullet wounds than these skeletal and muscle aches. At least, it was with medi-gel. But there was no such thing as medi-gel for a strained spine or twinging muscles, or pinched nerves.

"You want to leave us all alone with your mother?" Garrus's voice got even quieter and more ironic.

"Hell, Vakarian, you navigated half the planets in the galaxy on our first tour looking for pirates and crazies," Kaidan said. "You should be able to find a spare bedroom to crash."

"Liara navigated," Shepard muttered. She took a deep breath, stretching, and sitting up. Several of the twinging knots in her neck popped when she moved, but that didn't really make her feel better. Kaidan let her sit up without impediment, which was good, because if he'd tried to keep her snuggled in close she would have snarled at him. "You two bickered."

"Hey, now," Kaidan said, watching her closely. "You feeling okay, Shepard?"

"Yup," she said, rolling her neck and stretching out her shoulders. "Feeling good. What's up?"

"You slept through a small kitchen fire," Garrus said. "The oven temperature gauge isn't very well calibrated."

"An extra ten degrees doesn't make a difference when you put wax paper in the oven," Kaidan muttered.

"And your boy here just sat there trying not to wake you up while the rest of us scrambled around trying not to burn down his ancestral home," Garrus continued. "I'm shocked that anything on this planet survives your human, erm, mating rituals."

"What was I supposed to do, use cryofreeze on it?" Kaidan asked. "You try to freeze something ceramic that's on fire and it'll just explode. Tali had it covered. She's great at putting out little fires."

"Is that where everyone is?" Shepard asked. The kitchen was empty. Not clean, though. The residue of a lot of food preparation was scattered throughout the kitchen. And, she saw, the aftermath of a fairly big kitchen fire. The wall behind the oven was scorched.

"Ma isn't happy with any of us," Kaidan admitted, "but she's decided that the best revenge is to make us do repairs until our omni-tools break. Meantime she's taken everybody to the main kitchen to try and salvage what food she can. Not, uh, not all of it survived the fire."

"Wait," Shepard said, her sleepy brain catching up to the implication. "Garrus started the fire?"

"Laugh it up, Shepard," Garrus said.

"What was it you had to do to prove you were a better cook than me?" Shepard said, ignoring this. "Something about those eggs I made that smoked up the mess. Something about fire?"

"Technically, the dish I was making was still edible after it burned," Garrus said. "Just, erm, not after Tali put that fire suppressant on it."

"An engineer's work is never done," Kaidan said, in tones similar to Tali's. Sounded like a recent quote. Shepard laughed. Then she started stretching in preparation of getting up. Everything was a lot stiffer than it used to be, but she was getting used to it.

"So what kinds of repairs are we supposed to do? I'm not sure how long we're staying, but it wasn't supposed to be more than a few days," Shepard said. She rocked up off the couch, and caught herself against the table when she started to lose her balance. But there, she could straighten up just fine. She had a lot of twinges but the cure for that was walking around.

Kaidan and Garrus were staring at her in shock.

"What?" she said.

"I've just never seen you do that," Kaidan said. Garrus cleared his throat.

"Not a surprise, after how they found you. I just hadn't thought it through."

Right. The last time they'd seen her she was leaping across chasms and hopping up after being dropped thirty feet right on her ass. No wonder they were surprised. Well, they'd deal with it. She took a few steps, adjusted her balance around the twinges in her leg and then turned to stand with her hands on her hips.

"Well?" She said. "I don't know where your other kitchen is. And while we're talking about it, who has two kitchens anyway?"

"Ha," Kaidan said. He got up too and started leading them off, deeper into the house. "When this place was built the assumption was that there would be staff to do the cooking. Before the war, that was actually still true. This place sucked down a good forty or fifty workers. Keeping them all fed is a job for a good quartermaster, just on the civilian side. The summer kitchen was something my grandmother insisted on putting in. She said she wanted to bake pies sometimes without worrying about disrupting the whole orchard's supper. When me and my cousins came along they put in all the couches and tables."

"I'm having a hard time picturing a young you wandering around this pile," Shepard admitted. Kaidan led them through dim halls. The floors were heavy real wood, cut and placed in pretty patterns. The walls held photos and paintings in heavy wooden frames. If she could have named a place less like the place she grew up, this would be it.

"So how typical is this of human dwellings?" Garrus broke in. "Most of the ones I've been in so far are burnt up and full of husks. Are they always so. . . organic?"

"On Earth a lot of them are," Kaidan said. "Plaster walls, wood floors. Older homes especially. Out on the colonies it's all polymers, of course."

"What about where you grew up, Shepard?" Garrus said.

"I'm not exactly representative. You want the desert human experience you might need to ask James," Shepard said. "I grew up maybe two thousand miles south of here. Fifteen hundred? Doesn't matter. It was a different world."

And a very different place in the world. She'd known people back on Earth who lived in big sprawling houses and had staff. The Mayor of the city, the Police Chief, people like that. She'd never thought about Kaidan being more like them than like her.

Well, his parents being more like them than like hers. She studied his profile in the dim light, as covertly as possible. Nothing had changed. Nothing was different. Wherever they'd come from, they were here now.

Hell, Garrus, two steps behind them, was an actual alien from another world. And he was her best friend. Kaidan coming from money wasn't even important.

It was just surprising.

"Well, we actually just came from where I grew up," Kaidan reminded them both, "out on Jump Zero. This place is more where my parents live. What are turian homes like, Garrus?"

"A little bit like a barracks," Garrus said, "if a barracks had an extensive garden. My people like to give over more space to our food growth than our people. Makes sense. A lot of turians serve in the military. Almost all of us. The manufacturing plants tend to have extensive housing built right in. But mostly our homes are made of metals and polymers. The light is harsher on Palaven."

Kaidan led them down a narrow, plain hallway that branched off the main passage between two of the large cozy front rooms. After a sharp turn the hall opened up into a bright, cramped kitchen. There were several bright metal appliances bigger than any Shepard had seen in a civilian kitchen before, they looked like maybe they belonged in a restaurant or a military ship. Shiny pots and pans hung from a metal hoop attached to the ceiling. On the other side of the room a massive wooden table surrounded by fifteen chairs took up most of the space. Even the squared off hunks of wood the thing was made of were massive. It had to have been built in this room.

Everyone but Joker was bustling around the kitchen doing something to some dish or another. He was watching the dance from the table with an abstracted smile on his face. Shepard patted Kaidan's arm to let him know she was moving off and went to sit next to Joker.

"Hey Commander," Joker said. "You missed Garrus's culinary debut."

"I heard it was incendiary," Shepard said. He grinned at her. That was good to see. "You don't want to help cook? Are you, uh, bad at it? Like me?"

"No, I can cook," Joker said. "Not fancy stuff, but enough. I just figure that someone bumping into me and smashing all my ribs would be a bad end to the evening."

Garrus came and sat on her other side. She was pretty good at translating turian facial expressions by now. And this turian was incredibly embarrassed.

"They don't want you to set fire to this kitchen too?" Joker guessed. Garrus sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"It's a good thing I have simple tastes," he said after a long moment. "Not much chance of lighting things on fire if you're just making a quick cold meal."

"So why were you trying to push the limits?" Joker said. Garrus coughed and looked down. But he didn't answer. Shepard was pretty sure she knew why. And the reason why was sorting through a kitchen utensil drawer with one hand while balancing a dish on her hip, muttering quarian curses.

"I understand we're supposed to help with some repairs around here now?" Shepard said. No reason to just let Garrus stew in his embarrassment until the silence got thick. James brought over a huge platter full of something that smelled heavenly, and set it down in the middle of the table. Liara followed with two large pitchers.

"Yes, you are!" Elizabeth said. She sat down a heavy ceramic dish full of apples and sweet potatoes in some kind of sauce, and she pointed at Garrus. "And you're going to fix my stove."

"Yes, ma'am," Garrus said. Shepard had to grin at that. Garrus wasn't easily cowed by anyone, and she didn't think that Kaidan's feisty mom had done it. He must really feel guilty. Tali sat several completely unidentifiable dishes down in front of Garrus, and then sat across from him.

"Watch out for the edges of this table," Kaidan cautioned the quarian. He was balancing two big platters. How were they supposed to eat all this stuff? "Sometimes it splinters. Normally it's not a big deal. Just like a little pin prick. But I don't know if a wood splinter can pierce your suit."

"I'll be careful," Tali promised. Liara sat down next to her. She ran a blue hand lightly over the wood grain.

"This is a fascinating piece," she said. "But I imagine that the practice of building major features of your home out of organic materials provides several challenges to your archaeologists."

"Let them work for it," James said. His plate already looked like a tiny mountain. And he wasn't even a biotic. She picked a few things off the platters and took a bite of one. As soon as she did she realized how hungry she was.

Dinner took several hours, because no one wanted to stop talking. In particular no one wanted to stop talking to her. Their long separation had built up a lot of conversational backlog. Liara in particular had updates on people they'd met in their long journey together. She told them stories about Wrex and Bakara and little Mordin, about Primarch Victus and Admiral Koris, about Jack's students. The people who couldn't be there, who hadn't made it, weren't mentioned. Grief was for another time. This night was just about celebration.

By the time everyone wound down and found a spare bedroom, Shepard was exhausted. Exhausted and full of food. Kaidan led her by the hand out to the nearest barn. It was full of old automobiles, ground cars in the old style with real wheels that rolled along the earth. It smelled like dry grass and engine oil. He led her up the stairs in the back of the barn into the loft, where his old rooms were. It was like a little apartment. There was a bathroom, and a tiny kitchenette with cold storage and a hot plate. As many books as there were now crowding the walls of her cabin there were more here. There were blank spots in the dust on the shelves where pictures had recently been taken to her cabin.

His desk was piled high with papers, the lower levels of which were dusty around the edges. She drifted over to the desk while he bustled around putting fresh sheets on the bed. The top papers were all letters from Anderson dated back to a few months before the Reaper invasion. Probably the last time he'd been here. She noted with amusement that a lot of the letters were about her. Keeping tabs on her, was he? He could have come to visit instead. Or. . . maybe not. One of the letters was about half apology and half stern orders. It seemed Anderson was trying to keep at least one of his wunderkind out of the political firestorm and he'd ordered Kaidan to stay the hell away.

She leafed through to the deeper levels. He needed a filing system in the worst way.

No, wait, these weren't files at all. These were drawings.

They weren't great, but they were all clearly his. He'd dated them. And, as she got deeper into the older ones, there was a clear trend of improvement. Mostly the drawings were apple trees and old cars, things that would have been to hand. But she stopped at one of them. It looked abstract, but it wasn't exactly. It might have looked like random lines to anyone else. But it was the pattern of her old scars. The scars she'd lost when Cerberus pulled her back from the underworld.

"Hey, you're not supposed to see those," Kaidan said, noticing what she was holding. His tone was teasing. "If word gets out that I'm an artist, and a _bad_ artist, I'll never hear the end of it."

"This one," Shepard said, ignoring this concern, "is dated to when I was incarcerated on Earth. Why would you draw my scars then?"

"Ah," Kaidan said. He took it from her, gently, and frowned at it for a moment. "I had about a week of home leave, two months after you came in. I wanted to go see you but Anderson insisted I stay clear. I wanted to remind myself that you weren't really you."

"Well, I've got new scars now," Shepard said, dryly. "That doesn't make me any less me, either. Why draw them though?"

"I drew a lot that week," Kaidan said. He put the diagram of her old scars on the top of the stack of papers. "Keeps my hands busy while my mind wanders. I fixed up a lot of the old cars below us, too, for the same reason. You were right there in Vancouver. And I had this new rank, I could have gone to see you for myself. But I wasn't sure I could trust anything you said. I wasn't sure, you know, that you were you. Anderson promised to let me know what you were up to. So I was torn. Between doing the one thing I wanted most to do, and doing the smart thing."

"You always do the smart thing," Shepard said. Kaidan's lips twisted up in a wry smile.

"Not, ah, not always. There was that time I seduced my commanding officer," he said. She laughed.

"Is that what happened? I thought it was the other way around," she said. He reached for her with hesitant hands. Like he wasn't sure he was welcome, or wasn't sure she was real. She stepped into the circle of his arms and pulled him hard to her. The feel of him, solid and warm and alive against her chest, was the most comforting thing in the world. His arms wrapped around her, his big hands pulling her in close.

"When you went into that beam," he whispered into her hair, "I thought I'd never get to do this again."

"Yeah," she said, "Me too. But you have to admit, I did wait for you. And you did show up."

"Heh." His breath puffed out on a laugh. "I know you already said it, but. . ."

"Never again," she promised. He pulled her in tighter. A shudder ran through him on a sigh, and he pulled away enough to lean his forehead against hers. His hand came up to touch the curve of her cheek, gently, and trace the edge of her mouth. Gently, he kissed her, holding her in his hands like a sacrament. She was the one who deepened the kiss, who pulled his hips to hers. He broke away with a laugh.

"I had all these plans for what I'd do when I first got you alone," he said. "But I never figured I'd be coming down off a feast like that. Or the rest of it. I was in cryofreeze this morning."

"I know," she said, smiling back at him. She thought about the burn scars making ridges all along her right side. What would Kaidan think? Would he care? Would he be horrified? Would he treat her like spun glass? He was already so gentle, so cautious of her.

She wasn't sure she could deal with finding out tonight.

"I'm pretty tired myself," she said. She glanced at the narrow bed. "But are you sure there's room for two people on that thing?"

"Never tried it before," Kaidan said. He pulled her back for another kiss. "But I'm eager to find out. Before that, though, I want to have a look at you. You've been kind of stiff all night."

"Oh, I'm fine," she said, smiling. But Kaidan shook his head.

"You never refuse medical attention unless you're really hurt and you don't think I can help," he said. Well, crap, he knew her too well. "I was your medic the whole time we were chasing Saren. I know when you're rhino-hiding."

"How could I be hurt when all I've done is eat and sit?" Shepard said. Kaidan raised an ironic eyebrow at her and said nothing. After a long, long moment she sighed and gave in. "Fine. Fine, fine fine. You want to see? Fine."

She skinned out of her tight, long sleeved uniform shirt. The undershirt didn't have any sleeves, it was just a basic black tank top. She heard Kaidan's sharp intake of breath when he saw the scars. But she wasn't done. She unhooked her belt with stiff fingers and let her uniform pants fall to the floor. Standing there in just her undershirt and underwear, she felt more exposed than nude. The burn scars and the surgery scars marked most of her skin. Her leg was misshapen now, where muscle tissue had been damaged and removed and replaced with tech. She set her jaw and stared at him, defiantly.

Kaidan's lips were thin, his eyes dark. But what he said, when he raised his omnitool to scan her, was "Thank you."

Then, softly, when he got his readings, "Jesus."

"Are you happy now?" she asked. He ignored this in favor of typing out some code on his omnitool and scanning her again. Whatever he saw made him raise his eyebrows. Then he put his tool away.

"Yes," he said. She blinked at him. So he repeated himself. "I'm very happy. You're standing here in my old room, mostly naked, and you still trust me to scan you after everything you've been through. After me doubting you on Horizon and on Mars. So yeah. I'm happy."

"I don't. . ." She trailed off. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"You thought I'd be freaked out about the scar tissue?" he said. "Please. None of this is anywhere near as creepy as the first time I went to undress you on the new Normandy and found your old scars missing. _That_ was a problem. This is, well. You're you, Shepard. And you're here with me. That's all I care about."

"It's not going to get better," she said. "Miranda tried. My eyes aren't actually the same color anymore, did you know? This is a contact."

"That's going to take some getting used to," Kaidan admitted. "But for tonight. . . I noticed that you've got some muscular discomfort in a lot of different places. Would you like some help with that?"

"What?" she said. She hadn't though any of this was going to go this way. She was still trying to catch up. Kaidan grinned.

"I'm asking if you want a massage, Shepard. Just strip down and lay on the bed. It'll help," Kaidan said. She stared at him for a long moment. Wind whistled around the building. Insects chirped and buzzed in the summer night. And Kaidan just stood there watching her, his brown eyes warm. Waiting for an answer.

Well, why not?

She pulled off her undershirt and bra and lay facedown on the bed. It was strange, to be so close to naked and just walk right past him. Especially after so many months apart. He knelt above her on the bed. His hands, warm and firm, pressed into the muscles on either side of her spine. And he chuckled.

"What?" she said, muffled against the pillow.

"Oh, I used to have this fantasy. Years ago. Before we started dating," Kaidan said. His hands worked down her back. He was careful of the scars, gentle, but he didn't shy away from touching them. Maybe he really meant it. Maybe he really didn't mind. "I thought about it a lot when I was scanning you toward the end of missions. This little daydream."

"Oh?" she said. He was right. It was helping. She felt more relaxed already.

"I'd scan you, when you were standing in your combat armor about to hit the showers. Just like I scanned everybody, you know. And you'd be bruised and sore from biotically charging half a platoon of pirates and then beating them to death with the butt of your shotgun. In reality, I just advised you to take a hot shower and take some anti-inflammatories. But in my daydream you invited me to, uh, help work out your tension. And it always started like this."

"With you giving me a back rub?" she said.

"Yeah." He kissed the back of her neck. "Always."

"Seems like in a day dream you might want something a little more selfish." She seemed to be melting down into the bed. He started working on her sore leg. It twinged for a moment, but then started feeling much better.

"Well, this wasn't where the daydreams ended," he admitted. "Maybe later I'll show you some of the other things I used to fantasize about. Now that we have time, and the world isn't ending."

"We made time," she muttered, her voice slurred with sleep. He laughed again, warm and low.

"More time," he said. "Now we have all the time in the world."


	5. Chapter 5

I do not own Mass Effect or any of it's characters. Thank you for reading! This chapter is just a bit of morning fluff. More serious plotlines to come!

* * *

 _Trapped._

But not cold this time, stifling hot.

She couldn't breathe. Her oxygen was running out.

 _Oh god where's my helmet?_

Her eyes popped open, the first panicked yelp gasping out of her mouth. The light was dazzling, disorienting, she gulped air. _Shouldn't_ , there couldn't be much of it, but she couldn't stop.

Except, there was plenty.

The heaviness on her chest wasn't rubble, but Kaidan's shoulder and arm. His head was tucked down against her neck, his leg thrown over hers. And any other time she would think it was cute but she had to move now.

"Wha?" he muttered, sleepily. She slid out from under his arm and found herself at the edge of the bed too quickly. She fell, flat on her butt, and had to stifle another yelp of surprise. By now, Kaidan was fully awake, looking around in alarm. His biotics crackled blue over his skin.

Sunlight slanted in through the barn slats. The air was stifling hot, but fresher than anything she'd ever breathed off Earth.

"Bad, uh, bad dreams," she said, her voice gruff with sleep and suppressed reaction. Kaidan's biotics faded and he rubbed his face with his hands. She noticed for the first time that he was practically naked. It was odd the way adrenaline could re-order one's priorities.

"I thought we were under attack," he said, through his hands. Yeah she didn't have a monopoly on disproportionate panic. "Good thing no one came to get us. They might have gotten reaved."

"Give yourself a little credit," Shepard said. "You've never killed a civilian yet. I thought I was back on the Citadel. For a moment. Have I mentioned how much I love the air on your farm?"

"God, Shepard," Kaidan said, lowering his hands to look at her. "That's not just a bad dream. That's, that's a waking nightmare."

"Yeah." Shepard sighed, and stretched. Come to that, she was nearly naked too. What an incredibly bizarre waste of the good Lord's gifts, that she should be here in this loft with this man under these conditions and still completely unable to focus on enjoying the moment.

"I dream about that too," Kaidan said. Very quietly. He was looking at her and through her. "I dream that the team never finds you but we do. Too late. Months too late. But not too late to pretend to ourselves that you died in the explosion."

"It didn't happen," Shepard said. She rolled to her knees and gripped his hand. "That isn't what happened. I'm here. You're here. We get to just start again."

"Yeah, we're lucky." Kaidan took a deep breath and blew it out slow. Then he finally gripped her hand back. "Shepard I, I don't want to start again. I want to build on what we had. I want to go forward. I don't know what, but, I want things to change. For the better. To grow."

"Okay," Shepard said. "Does that. . . does that have anything to do with what your mom said last night? About kids?"

"Huh." Kaidan frowned down at their hands. "Kind of? But it seems wrong to take this many sharp turns in a conversation before having coffee."

"True." She squeezed his hand and let go. She turned her back on him, ostensibly to look for clothes, really to hide her face. She was absolutely not ready for a talk that big about their relationship. Couldn't they wait a year or two to talk about that? Or ten?

The bed creaked, and she heard Kaidan's bare feet pad across the wood floor. His arms wrapped around her bare stomach. The skin of her back pressed against his bare chest.

"I love you, Shepard," he said, his breath hot on her neck. "I always have. I just want to try new things with you. Good new things, not horrifying challenges that determine the fate of the whole damn galaxy. And yeah, someday, kids. But not today. So you don't have to freak out, okay?"

"I wasn't freaking out," she protested. His laugh gusted warm across her neck.

"Sure," he said. "You can lie to yourself, Shepard, but you can't lie to me."

Historically, she reflected, that was usually true.

"Okay," she said. Light slanted golden across the back of his hands, covering her stomach. "Talking about having kids freaks me out. I'm a soldier."

"Soldiers have kids," he pointed out. " _Wrex_ has kids. A lot of kids by now."

"Wrex has indestructible baby krogan," Shepard said. _Not tiny pink squishy things that can't even walk for a year._ "Look, you don't want me to freak out, let's drop this. Okay?"

"Okay," Kaidan said. He kissed the back of her ear and let her go. "You aren't planning on skinning back into that dress uniform, are you?"

That was one of the beautiful things about Kaidan. He could drop a painful topic like it was a spent heat sink. But he never, ever forgot. If she started talking about this again two, five, ten years from now he'd just pick right back up where they left off.

"Actually, I was hoping to borrow some clothes off you," she said. He frowned, thoughtfully, and started digging through his drawers. He came up with a pair of draw-string shorts and a t-shirt that hung loosely from her shoulders. It wasn't the prettiest she'd ever looked, but it was sure comfy. They climbed down from the loft and went to the kitchen. The summer kitchen was where most of the breakfast food was located, Kaidan said, but the oven was still out of commission. Most traces of the fire had been scrubbed from the walls and from the equipment, though there were some bubbles in the paint on the cupboards remaining. Garrus and Tali were bent over the open oven.

"You two got stuck on clean-up duty?" Kaidan asked them. Garrus grimaced, his mandibles clicking.

"Your mother has a way with words," Garrus said. He did not elaborate further. "I think we can fix this thing up without needing to order any spare parts. I might even be able to calibrate the temperature gauge so this kind of thing doesn't happen again.

Shepard's eyes widened but she managed to keep from smiling or laughing at him. Her turian friend had a simple religion- accurate calibrations save lives. She wasn't sure it corresponded to any actual faith or creed but it surely seemed sacred to him. Tali muttered something under her breath.

"I'm not going to be the one to scrub these heating coils, Vakarian," she warned. She straightened, taking a step back as if to emphasize the point. Garrus sighed and leaned in to the oven. "Coated in melted wax and paper bits. And food. What a mess."

"Is everyone else still asleep?" Shepard asked. Kaidan handed her a fresh apple and some rolls with jam. Good fresh farm fare. That didn't, she noticed, require any kind of oven. He busied himself by the coffee maker.

"Hardly," Tali said. "You two are the last, I think. Joker hasn't come down out of the Normandy, but then he wouldn't. James and Steve are out in the burned fields. Something about salvaging transportation equipment. Liara is with your mother, Kaidan."

"Nope, can't hear you, making coffee," Kaidan said. Shepard grinned at that. She tried to imagine what the Shadow Broker would want with the widow of a retired Alliance officer. Not much. So it must have something to do with the farm, or with Kaidan. Or maybe Liara just liked Elizabeth.

"I wanted to talk to you two about your plans, actually," Shepard said. Tali stiffened. She waved her down. "We haven't gotten our orders from Hackett yet, but the Normandy has been through a lot. I think she needs to be checked over by Alliance engineers before we take her out through the new Relays. That being said, even if you wait for us to get through all of our checks and refitting, the Normandy is probably your fastest ticket to wherever you want to go. Transport is kind of at a premium these days."

"It's true," Tali said. "Booking passage anywhere is a nightmare. I looked at it this morning."

"Did you, now," Garrus said, quietly. Tali shifted her weight from one foot to another.

"You could wait for us to take you home, and maybe not lose too much time," Shepard said. She tried to ignore the byplay between them. If there was a potentially more damaging place to stick her nose, she couldn't think of it. "To be honest I could use both of you on the Normandy for a little while. You're both very high-profile. You both have a lot of influence with your governments. And I'm not what you'd call an experienced Ambassador. I can use all the help I can get. Think about it?"

"Of course, Shepard," Tali said. Garrus cleared his throat.

"It would only be temporary, you understand. Palaven needs its children to rebuild it. Even the ones who are more comfortable holding a sniper rifle than a hammer. But I'll think about it," Garrus said. Shepard nodded thanks. Kaidan set a mug of hot coffee in front of her, and smiled.

"What do you say we take our breakfast outside?" he suggested. "It's a beautiful morning."

Shepard grabbed her food and coffee, said goodbye to her suddenly quieter friends, and followed Kaidan back out into the summer sunshine. He paused when they were properly outside and looked around. Finally his eye settled on a low stone wall ringing the herb garden. He sat his mug down on it and hooked his leg over the side. Shepard, amused, just leaned.

"I thought we should give them some space to talk that over," he said, nodding back toward the kitchen. "You had a good idea. I'm just not that sure how they'll take it."

"I think they want an excuse to be together," Shepard said. Kaidan smiled, and gave her an odd look. "What?"

"You're a romantic after all. Who knew?" Kaidan teased. She grinned.

"If you're just noticing that now, I've got some catching up to do," she said. He snorted.

"You can't imagine what it was like sitting in a ship with them for six months without even a mission to distract them. I thought I was going to have to shoot the both of them," Kaidan said. He took a big bite of his apple. "The more I find myself in command, the more sense those anti-fraternization regs make to me. It's not just about the pressure a commanding officer can bring to bear, or the way that it distracts you in combat. People in love are a pain in the ass."

"Cynic," Shepard said. He rolled his eyes. "I never noticed you being much distracted in combat."

"Like hell," Kaidan said. "It helped that I was your Sentinel, that first time around, and that I had more years of hard training under my belt by the time you came back. Helped me watch your back without dying. But I was never as good at keeping myself in one piece when I was on your squad."

"Good thing I was watching _your_ back," Shepard said. Then she sighed. "We're lucky we didn't both die, huh?"

"It helps that we're the best," Kaidan said. He stated it as a fact, without pride or conceit. "But yes. Very lucky."

"It's all over now, anyway," Shepard said. Her smile fell a little flat. "I'm never going to be a soldier again."

That hung between them, in silence. The fields were alive with the sounds of insects. The air smelled sweeter than ship air ever could. Kaidan looked out over the fields for a long time. She watched the sunlight play in the gray hairs at his temple, and tried to be grateful that the two of them were there at all. Instead of angry that it wasn't the way she'd wanted it to be.

"I want to say thank God, you know. That I'm glad you'll be out of the line of fire," Kaidan said. He met her eyes. "And I am. But I'm not. You're my Commander, you're a soldier all the way down. I'm scared what not being a soldier will do to you. But. . . you're alive. That's a miracle. That's not a little miracle, that's a huge miracle. It's shocking enough that any of us made it through. But you. . . you were right in the center of the storm the whole time. I can't even count all the ways you should be dead. But you're not. And no matter what happens next every day I get to wake up with you in my arms is a gift."

There wasn't anything to say to that, so she kissed him. His skin was warm from sunshine, and so was hers, and he was right. It was a miracle.


	6. Chapter 6

Thank you all for your patience, and for reading. I don't own Mass Effect or any of it's characters or locations or anything.

* * *

Shepard watched the Normandy disappear into the atmosphere and tried, very hard, to keep her panic off her face. They were just going to Vancouver. They'd be back in a few hours. There was absolutely no reason to feel like she was never going to see Kaidan again.

She should have gone with them. To hell with making sure her alien friends weren't left alone in a strange place, she should have insisted.

Joker was eager to get the Normandy repaired and refitted, so they could fly again. Flying was all he had, so she understood entirely. Problem was that the only person certified to co-pilot the Normandy, officially, was Kaidan. Tali could certainly have handled it, and Liara probably could have as well, but the Alliance brass didn't need to know that. Kaidan's certification was old. Joker probably wouldn't let him touch the controls. But they needed a co-pilot to bring her in to an Alliance port.

And of course, Cortez had seized the chance to catch a ride back to Vancouver. He had work, apparently, running a bunch of junior pilots through their new duties. A lot of the fighter jocks thought that supply runs and medical transports were beneath them. Cortez had a knack for making them realize that they could save more lives by running equipment safely and cheaply than they could shooting down bad guys. And anyway, it was peace time. Vega went, too, though he wasn't sure if he'd stay in Vancouver or come back with Kaidan and Joker. It depended, he said, on what the brass wanted from him. He was N7 now, and he had responsibilities.

Elizabeth put a hand on Shepard's shoulder, and Shepard barely kept herself from flinching. Pure nerves. She gave the older woman a wan smile.

"It's hard to watch them go when you just got them back," Elizabeth said. Of course. As a military widow, Elizabeth knew all about watching ships disappear into the atmosphere. "Come on. I've got just the thing to take your mind off it."

"Not more food," Shepard said. The Alenko clan was going to feed her until she couldn't walk. Her weakened joints wouldn't be able to take the strain. Elizabeth smiled. Liara, on the other side of her, smiled too. And rubbed her stomach in sympathy.

"I was thinking I'd take you on a tour of the orchard," Elizabeth said. She included Liara in her smile. "Both of you. You may find it interesting from a historic perspective, Dr. T'soni. The orchard has been here for a long time."

"Certainly," Liara answered. Shepard smiled and nodded. And let herself be led off to the garage, where there was a little white cart with black wheels waiting for them. Garrus and Tali, she was given to understand, were still repairing the summer kitchen. The cart rumbled to life at the touch of a button and they were off. She hadn't been in a wheeled vehicle since the Mako. Every bump reverberated up through the cart and her spine.

"This will also give us a chance to talk about current events," Liara said. Shepard raised an eyebrow. She wanted to talk about Shadow Broker intel, here? Now? Shepard glanced from Liara to Elizabeth and raised her eyebrow. Liara just smiled.

"I wouldn't want to bore Mrs. Alenko," Shepard said, by way of a broad hint. Elizabeth snorted.

"Yeah, I'm only a small business owner and mother to a Spectre. Galactic news is boring," Elizabeth said. Shepard blinked at her.

"In fact, Elizabeth and I have been talking for some time," Liara said. "She's the one who gave me reports on your condition. Miranda tends to focus on the technical, not the psychological."

It only took a few seconds for Shepard to unravel that. Liara had set Kaidan's mother to spy on her? Which, wait a moment, made _Kaidan's mother_ an agent for the Shadow Broker. Whether she knew it or not. Shepard's lips stretched wide in a fierce grin. Oh, he was going to hate that.

"And Liara gave me information about what my son was up to," Elizabeth said. "He was always too stubborn and independent to listen to good sense. Not sure at all what I think of him being in command, I surely don't. He's going to be last out of a burning building some day and he won't even think twice about the sacrifice."

"Um," Shepard said, and her brain stalled out like a broken engine. Elizabeth was right, of course, but hearing her say it out loud was bizarre. She'd had to order Kaidan out of danger more than once.

Wait, could she still do that? Order him out of danger? Would he listen?

"In any case," Liara said, "I thought you might want to give some thought to where we are going as soon as the Normandy is ready. There's several options. Some problems are more urgent than others."

They trundled slowly and bumpily through an avenue of apple trees. Last year's harvest had come during the war, and no one was picking apples then. The ground was littered with the rotted remains of last year's apple crop and the air was sickly sweet with the scent.

"Okay, what's most urgent?" Shepard asked. Liara's lips quirked.

"There's the official line, and there's the truth. Officially the biggest threat of disaster comes from the krogan. They want to expand, they want ten new planets. Right now with resources so strained that request looks pretty belligerent. Wrex and Bakara are running it, so it's all pretty aboveboard. They're going through proper channels."

"So that's not the real emergency," Shepard said. "They've got it under control. What's the real emergency?"

"That question gets a little bit trickier," Liara said. "One answer is, the asari. We lost Thessia. Palaven and Earth have been the recipients of a lot of aid from the galactic community, but not Thessia. We asari have been mostly left to recover on our own. Or asked for help. And many of our leaders remember what the krogan and the rachni did to our galaxy. Watching them rise in the wake of this war has encouraged some to. . . take steps."

"Crap," Shepard muttered.

"Yes," Liara said. She paused, then said reluctantly, "My father is encouraging the other Matriarchs to change some of our cultural practices. To become more war-like. She thinks that if our maidens were encouraged to train militarily instead of dancing in bars we would not have lost Thessia. And she may be right. But these cultural movements are happening under the surface."

"So far I'm not hearing anything that's a problem," Shepard said. Liara looked away, out over the warm green fields.

"You can't train an army without something to fight, Shepard," Liara said. "My people are fractured. Unstable. Our culture is. . . fragmenting. You saw how much a good fight can bring people together. How having a powerful enemy can force people into cohesion."

"So, who would the asari fight?" Elizabeth asked.

"Either the humans or the turians," Liara said. "Or, I suppose, the krogan. But the turians and humans are competitors for the same planets and resources that the asari need. So unless we do something to redirect the asari, we could be looking at another war very soon. Within a decade."

Liara's definition of soon, Shepard was reminded, was based on a much longer lifespan than she could hope to enjoy. She sighed.

"So we ought to go talk to your father," Shepard said. Liara nodded.

"That, or, well, the other emergency is less urgent, but it's something no one else can address. The rachni are spreading throughout the galaxy. And they are, so far, helping rebuild. But no one knows what their goals are. They don't communicate with anyone else. Several governments are already putting plans in motion to wipe them out if they show the least sign of violence."

"But the rachni wouldn't go easily," Shepard said. "Fighting them would just bring about a new war. It wouldn't be over quickly."

"Exactly. And you're trusted by the rachni queen. You might be the only one who is," Liara said. Shepard sighed. She was never, ever going to be done, was she?

"And then there's the goodwill tour," Elizabeth put in. They came to the end of the row of trees, and Elizabeth turned the cart to go down near a broad blue lake. "Don't forget. You have to shake hands and kiss babies with every major ally. Turians, salarians, asari, quarians, batarians. Everyone. Even the hanar. You're the face of the human resistance. Now that you're on your feet and you have your ship back people will expect you to come to their planet and thank them for their help."

"Shouldn't they be thanking us for our help?" Shepard said. Elizabeth grinned. And for a moment, Shepard could really see where Kaidan got his sense of humor from. His twisted, subtle sense of humor.

"The best thanks for a job well done is another job," Elizabeth said. Liara snorted. Delicately. But still. She was clearly learning bad manners from all the soldiers she was hanging around.

"I like working from the Normandy," Liara said. "So I would want to come with you. It provides a certain mobility and anonymity. No one seems to question me being an information broker who works with you, they all just assume you're paying well. Or that I'm besotted. Either way it's a good way to work."

"I couldn't do this without you, Liara," Shepard assured her. Alliance intelligence was always a little underfunded. She'd come to rely on Liara's information absolutely. Liara's smile widened to hear that.

They circled the pond and followed an overgrown dirt path into a patch of thick trees. The trees looked old, to Shepard's eyes, but then the part of Earth where she grew up didn't have very many. They were tall anyway. More than twice as tall as her. It was cool under their shade, and the wind in the leaves made a sound that soothed her. She suddenly understood why, despite all his wanderings through space, Kaidan thought of this place as home.

"There used to be a spring house out here," Elizabeth said. "About, oh, a hundred a fifty years ago. Down here in the valley there's some caves that connect to an underground river. Well, a stream. It's just the highest bit of ground water. But the caves were modified and built out for dry storage. We keep apples out here, preserves, bottles of cider. Hard and soft, you know, all of it. When I got married there was a still in one of the back caves but we got rid of it around the time Kaidan and his cousins hit their teen years. They were all a little too good with chemistry."

"I can just picture it," Shepard said, smiling. Liara looked all around them, her blue eyes wide with interest. For all the things that were supposedly under their wheels the woods in front of them were remarkably boring. If Liara's archaeologist's eyes saw anything other than trees and scrub she didn't mention it.

They rounded a corner and over a small rise, up a little path, stood a white wood building. It was small, almost the size of the Normandy CIC, with wooden slats on the sides. It had to be old. People stopped covering their buildings in wood almost a hundred years ago, too expensive. Polymers were so much cheaper and easier to maintain. But the wood had afforded a strange opportunity. Bright green leaves grew through the cracking paint. The woods were reclaiming this patch of land, one plant at a time.

"Wait, what's that?" Shepard asked. Obligingly, Elizabeth stopped the cart.

"It's our chapel," Elizabeth said. "It's a great story, actually. My husband's grandmother wanted to marry a Catholic man, even though her family was Protestant. Back in the day, that kind of thing was a little unheard of. At least out here away from civilization. Their families supported the match, but their churches- not so much. So the bride's father built them this chapel. His thought was if the preacher and the priest wanted to fight, they could fight. But he wasn't going to let his little girl suffer for it. Or her chosen husband. They were married right here."

"I suppose it must be hereditary," Liara said, amused. "Being stubborn."

"Oh, yes," Elizabeth sighed. Shepard hopped out of the cart and went to inspect the chapel. It was falling apart. There were great big holes in the roof and it looked like some woodland creature had taken up residence inside. Or maybe a herd of woodland creatures. But something about the chapel really spoke to her. Maybe it was the verdant life overflowing every crack and crevice.

Maybe it was the absolute visual proof that life could continue, that growth was the natural state of the world. Not destruction.

"Your archaeologists must have a very difficult time tracing your settlements," Liara said, laying a blue hand on the wooden walls. "I would think that buildings like this are absorbed back into the flora in just a few hundred years."

"Unless someone keeps them up, yes, they do," said Elizabeth. She walked up to the door and pulled. It stuck in its frame. She gave it a little yank and the door pulled free, shedding little bits of greenery as it opened.

"Should we be messing with this?" Liara asked. "One stasis bubble and this whole thing would collapse."

"Sure," Shepard agreed. "But we could just use that same stasis bubble to keep the debris off us. The day we met I pulled you out of a collapsing volcano. I think we can handle a little wood."

Liara grimaced, but she didn't disagree. It was a moot point anyway. Elizabeth had already gone inside. The older woman was making strange noises, like she was trying to communicate with the four-legged inhabitants of the space.

Shepard stepped over the threshold. It was dark inside, but that was to be expected. The windows were small, the trees overhead thick with leaves. She listened, very carefully. But heard nothing except Elizabeth's soft breathing as the older woman noticed her pausing and paused with her.

"I think whatever lived here has moved on," Elizabeth said. "Except, of course, for bugs and mice."

"We could repair it," Shepard said, without even pausing to think. "I mean, not take the trees out of the walls. But we could clear out this debris."

"If you want to clear debris, I've got a whole field to the south that needs attention," Elizabeth said. Then she sighed. "But yeah. We're here, we might as well. I'll want your help in the south fields after, though."

"Such as it is," Shepard muttered. Liara briefly eclipsed the light coming in from the doorway. Shepard couldn't see her face clearly in the dimness, but she didn't have to see much of it to know the asari was regarding her with deep suspicion. "If you go back to the house and get some brooms and some wash buckets, I think Liara and I can clear most of the debris. Biotically."

"Huh," Elizabeth said. But she shrugged, and slipped out the door past Liara. "Good idea. Biotics. I'll have my son help in the south fields, too, when he gets back. Should make the work light."

"Easy for you to say," muttered Liara. When Elizabeth had trundled off in the little cart, Liara folded her arms and raised an ironic eyebrow at Shepard. And waited.

After a long silence, Shepard cleared her throat and said, "Yes?"

" _We_ aren't moving debris at all. I am," Liara said. She lifted a piece of the fallen ceiling with her biotics, in illustration, and moved it out the door. "You, I am given to understand, are not to lift anything heavier than fifty pounds."

"Come on," Shepard scoffed. "Half the crap in this room is lighter than that."

"What do you want with this place, Shepard?" Liara said. That was a tricky question. She wasn't at all sure how to answer. Mostly because she didn't know what the answer was. It was still cooking in her back brain, deep in her vaunted and highly valued intuition. This place was important.

"Hell, I'm just bored," she said. Liara sighed and lifted another bit of debris with her biotics. Shepard bent to help, picking up some of the smaller bits. By the time Elizabeth got back the little chapel was free of debris and ready to be cleaned. With all three of them sweeping and splashing soapy water over the corners and crevices it didn't take long. The results, Shepard had to admit, were less than spectacular. But she felt better for doing it anyway. They carefully shut the door behind them when they left. It might discourage woodland creatures from moving back in. Temporarily.

As promised, they then turned their attention to the south fields. Shepard found that she wasn't as useless in cleaning up after the fire as she'd thought she would be. She couldn't clear debris, but she could inspect the mechanical elements and determine what was salvageable. They were still at it, long past noon, absorbed in the task, when an Alliance shuttle swooped over their heads on the way back to the house.

"They're back!" Shepard hollered over the fields. She made her way back to the cart. She was slow, these days, slow enough that Liara and Elizabeth actually got to it before her. Which was good, for them, because she wasn't at all sure she would have waited. They rolled back up to the house as fast as the little cart would go.

"Did that shuttle seem a little big to you?" Shepard shouted over the sound of the cart bumping along the uneven ground. Liara, holding on grimly, nodded.

"That was more like a troop transport. Maybe they had to bring someone else back with them?" the asari suggested. But then they were cresting the rise, and rolling out into the big lawn in front of the house. The shuttle had made it there before them. Not a surprise. But people were just beginning to spill out into the lawn.

Lots of people.

Shepard spotted Kaidan in the crowd. Prudently, with a frustrated respect for her new physical limitations, she waited until the cart stopped before she slid off and ran to him. Well, it was close to running. There was a little more hobbling involved than she was proud of. But he met her halfway, a big grin on his face.

As soon as his arms wrapped around her something deep in her chest warmed, and relaxed. Some tight knot of fear she hadn't even realized she was carrying. When she tilted her head back to look at him his lips captured hers. She hardly noticed the cheering and hooting that erupted all around them.

 _So this is what it's like to not give a damn about regs._

When she pulled back, she was grinning. And so was he. He pulled her in closer for a tight hug before he loosened his grip.

"Jesus Christ, you two. You were apart for less than six hours," a very familiar voice said. Shepard turned to see Jack, in all her underdressed glory, standing with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Jack!" Shepard cried. Only then did she look around at the people milling on the front lawn. She recognized some of the students from Grissom Academy. "What are you doing here?"

"Nice to see you too, ass," Jack said, rolling her eyes. "I ran into King Boy Scout coming out of the Alliance headquarters. We decided to get our students together and have a little biotic training camp while you guys are grounded."

"A biotic training camp?" Elizabeth said, her eyes lighting. _There's something very sinister about a matriarch with a list of chores in mind_ , Shepard thought. That south field was going to be sparkling clean by the time the students left.

"I put the word out to the rest of my students," Kaidan said, "So if they're still checking their drops they should be along when they have time. But let me introduce you around to the ones that were in Vancouver."

Shepard smiled and followed him. His students were easy to pick out, both because they were strangers to her and because they were a little older than Jack's kids. But she noticed, at the back of the group, James Vega leaning against the side of the shuttle. His eyes tracked Jack as she poked and prodded her students into something resembling order.

 _I can't tell if that's going to be entertaining to watch or if that's just how we all die_ , Shepard thought.


	7. Chapter 7

I do not own Mass Effect, any of its characters, or any of its settings. Thanks for reading!

* * *

"Ah, son?" Elizabeth said, pulling at Kaidan's arm until his head was on a level with hers. Shepard was still folded in against his chest, his other arm wrapped tight around her waist, so she heard Elizabeth's whisper. "I'm always up for billeting soldiers. You know I am. But . . . aren't there rather a lot of them?"

Kaidan's mom had a point, Shepard thought. She glanced around at the students from Grissom Academy and the agents from Biotics Division. Jack was chivying her kids to help unload something from the troop transport that had dropped them right on the Alenko lawn. The old orchard house was big. So big it had two kitchens. But it wasn't nearly big enough for this. Not unless the biotics wanted to sleep four to a room.

"I've got another load of students coming," Kaidan said. Shepard watched Elizabeth's knuckles go white on Kaidan's arm, and was close enough to catch his wince when her fingers dug in. "They're bringing tents, Ma. It's nice out. Enlisted will sleep in the tents, officers in the house. We've got room."

"Kaidan," his mother hissed. "What are they going to eat?"

"That's what they're unloading right now," Kaidan said. He seemed just as unmoved by his mother's panic as he ever was by Mako crashes and biotic explosions. Shepard had to smile. "Provisions. I'm going to set them up in a K-P rotation. We'll need to feed them well, because we're going to work them hard. I hope Garrus and Tali have fixed up the summer kitchen."

Shepard noticed the turian and quarian had come out to investigate the commotion, and now were trading stories with Jack. The three of them had served together on the SR-2 back when it was a Cerberus ship. They doubtless had a lot of war stories to catch up on.

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at Kaidan, but whatever she was going to say next was interrupted by a tall, lanky soldier with a beak nose who came up to them smiling. She saw his eyes flick to her, then Kaidan, as if asking a silent question, before he descended upon Elizabeth with a wide smile.

"Ma Alenko! Thank you so much for having us out to your orchard again. Your hospitality is the only thing that makes my service bearable," the man said. Elizabeth released her son's arm and gave the soldier a motherly hug. As distractions went, it was masterful.

"Shepard, I'd like to introduce you to Jake Quinn. One of my students from Biotic Division," Kaidan said. Shepard held out a hand for Jake to shake, which he did. His eyebrows shot up at the mention of her name. "Jake, this is Commander Shepard."

"Good God, man," Jake muttered, giving Kaidan a look Shepard was entirely unable to interpret. Then he turned his attention to her. "It's an honor to meet you, Ma'am. I served under Admiral Anderson in the fight for Earth. We were all very encouraged by the news he brought us about your victories."

"Thank you," Shepard said gravely. "It's an honor to meet you as well. Without each and every one of you there wouldn't have been an Earth left to save."

The soldier blinked at her, a grin spreading across his face.

"I'll spread that word around, Ma'am," he said. Then he cleared his throat and turned to Elizabeth. He led her off, talking about where to have the younger students take the provisions they'd brought from Vancouver.

"You broke him," Kaidan breathed a chuckle directly into her ear. She had to smile. "Poor man doesn't have any idea what to do with a Commander Shepard wearing my old BDU's."

"I'm not exactly living up to the legend, am I?" she said ruefully. Kaidan dropped a kiss on her forehead and stepped back. He did it like they'd done that a thousand time before, even though they'd never done any such thing. Not where people could see. After all that time maintaining a professional soldierly facade even a kiss on the forehead felt illicit.

"To hell with legends," Kaidan said, his face grave and earnest. "Let's just be us."

She smiled in answer, and he went off to co-ordinate the biotic students. Shepard turned to see two young people waiting for her attention shyly. She recognized the young man as Prangley and the young woman as Rodriguez from Grissom Academy. Jack's students. She schooled her face to the open neutrality that let people know she wasn't too busy for their questions. Sometimes even in oversized BDU's a legend could be intimidating.

"Commander," Prangley said, saluting. Rodriguez, after a sideways look at her comrade, followed suit. "We're glad to see you up and about, Ma'am."

"Thank you," Shepard said, returning their salutes. Nobody was in proper uniform, but so what? If saluting made them happy she'd do it. Anderson would have approved.

"You probably don't remember us," Rodriguez said. Her lips twisted up wryly and she was about to say that yes, she did remember saving their butts, when the young woman continued. "We were with the rescue crew that pulled you out of the Citadel."

A chill rushed through Shepard's veins. She looked at the two students with new attention. They regarded her steadily, with excitement, not fear or revulsion or smugness. They were proud, then, of what they'd accomplished. She didn't remember much of that rescue. Just fragments. It was all mixed up now with the nightmares she had about it, and she didn't know what it was they had seen when they pulled her carcass free. But apparently whatever it was it didn't make them recoil from her.

But they had seen something very few people had. They'd seen her totally helpless.

She blew out a slow breath and tried to let her knee-jerk defensiveness go with it.

"Thank you," she said, gravely. "Both of you."

"It was an honor," Rodriguez said. Then she remembered to say, "Ma'am."

Oh yeah. These were Jack's students.

"But we actually had a question," Prangley said. "We saw the devastation on Earth. We got a lot of people asking us to do more, to be closer to the front lines, to do the biotic artillery strikes we trained for. Jack always had a lot to say about that. And if it looked like she was losing a fight on that score she'd always invoke your name."

"I saw a Major back down after she told him it was your idea to have us doing barriers and modding ammo," Rodriguez put in.

"But we were wondering why you did that," Prangley said. Shepard considered the pair in front of her. They looked impossibly young to her, even though their biotic metabolisms had aged them a bit. But everyone under thirty was beginning to look like a kid. Hell, half the time she had to remind herself that Vega was a grown ass N7 not some raw Lieutenant sent to polish her sniper rifles.

She could tell them a lot of things that would be true. That Jack had asked her to save them, and Jack would know better what their odds of survival were. That she really didn't think one more artillery unit would make as much difference as a benefit to be shared among several such units. That she knew soft when she saw it and the bunch of them had been dough when she first met them.

But she knew what Anderson would say.

"You know what Anderson called you guys when I told him about the rescue?" she said. Their eyes widened. Rodriguez shook her head, faintly. "He said you were humanity's brightest and we were just throwing you to the Reapers. And you are. How could I risk losing that for the future by throwing you into a meat grinder?"

Prangley swallowed, convulsively, and saluted. Clearly at a loss for words. Rodriguez followed suit. Shepard saluted back. It was beginning to feel a little weird doing it in Kaidan's old clothes.

She'd seen soldiers that overwhelmed, that touched, in Anderson's service. She wondered if he had felt as hollow and uncertain as she did now. If all his confidence was a facade.

She straightened her shoulders just in case.

It was hours before the biotics were all set up, and then it was time for dinner. Kaidan and Jack jointly announced that training would begin after nightfall. But first, of course, they'd need to eat and get their strength up. They had brought collapsible camp tables with them. And enough food to feed three armies. Watching all of them tuck in to their food, their voices raised in cheerful cacophony, Shepard felt more like a soldier than she had in years. It was the first time since she lost her old unit that she really thought about how small her teams had been. Had she really spent this entire war as part of a pinpoint strike force?

She managed to snatch some food and found a seat near Garrus and Tali. If the two of them had talked about their romantic issues no trace of that tension showed. They weren't even intimidated by the huge crowd of human soldiers. Before the Reaper War a turian and a quarian sitting down to eat with this many humans would be a real event. Now they coolly exchanged ideas for how to train the youngsters like the old officers they were.

"If they're going to be front line units they need more tech training," Tali argued. "How many times have we blasted through an enemy unit just to find an engineering problem staring us in the face?"

"But that's why you put adepts and engineers in the same unit," Garrus argued back. "Specialization, not universal training. A lot of these people won't have the aptitude. Biotics are more for making big explosions anyway."

"Hey," Kaidan said, setting a plate down next to them. Shepard raised a brow at him. "Okay. Fine. Yes, I like to blow things up. But that doesn't mean I can't do tech work."

"You're the second human Specter," Garrus waved this off. "You and Shepard aren't representative. We're talking about what these kids need to be better at their new jobs."

"Well, actually, Jack and I have some thoughts on that," Kaidan said. "The problem is that we just don't know what their new jobs are going to be. It's easier to throw someone across the room than it is to put up a barrier, and it's easier to put up a barrier than it is to do something with fine control. There's a lot of rubble that needs clearing. Their first job could be demolition."

"You want to take the best and brightest war heroes and tell them that their new job is grunt work?" Shepard asked, her voice very mild. Garrus held out a hand in her direction as if to say he couldn't have phrased it better himself.

"That's where we come in," Kaidan said. "They'll do anything if they think you're doing it too."

"I'm not moving rubble tonight, Alenko," Tali warned him. Kaidan grinned around a mouthful of food.

"No, tonight they're mine. Tomorrow they're Jack's. Got to start them off easy," he said. "I figured we'd play Bait the Biotic. Make a proper mess. And then tommorrow make them clean it all up."

Shepard's hand stilled. Bait the Biotic was a drill Ashley invented. Well, calling it a drill was generous. Shepard had walked in on her gunnery chief flicking nuts and bolts at her staff lieutenant. Like a little kid trying to pester her big brother. When asked what the hell she was doing Ashley had explained, very blandly, that she was working on a barrier drill with Kaidan. The idea, she'd said, was to help him raise his barrier more quickly. If he could notice the bolt coming at him and raise the barrier before it hit, he'd only ever get shot once. It was true that Kaidan was very fast at putting his barrier up, so it worked. But Shepard didn't buy for a moment that Ashley's real intention was to be helpful.

"So you're going to have them throw metal shards at each other? Where will this be happening, so that I can be somewhere else?" Tali asked dryly.

"South fields. I was thinking I'd do it like a free for all. Really wear them out," Kaidan said. Something flared bright blue behind him. Shepard stood, ever on the alert, and saw Jack's barrier shimmering across her body like blue flame. Vega stood in front of her, already in a fighting stance.

Jesus, how could those two possibly have pissed each other off this fast?


	8. Chapter 8

I don't own Mass Effect or any of its characters. Thanks for reading!

* * *

Shepard started for them, but Vega was already going for Jack. She'd shared enough battlefields with him to know it was a feint, that he was more interested in throwing Jack off balance and getting to the knife in his boot than he was in hitting her. But he never got to complete the feint. Delicately, with more control than Shepard had ever seen her use, Jack put him in a stasis field and lifted him high in the air. He floated, blue and glowing, like a barbaric lantern.

"And that," Jack said, loud enough for the whole crowd to hear, "is how a hundred pound woman beats the shit out of a two hundred pound man. Keeping him all safe and cozy like this is way harder than crushing all the bones in his body."

Shepard slowed, realizing at last - and Jesus, she was slow today - that she was seeing a demonstration. Not a fight. Jack was a big girl now. A real Alliance instructor. Not a messed up kid fresh out of prison. And Vega was an N7. Not just some wet-behind-the-ears Lieutenant with more muscle than self-preservation. They had both grown.

With effort, she tried to slow her pounding heart by taking even breaths. And, since everyone had seen her start toward them, she made herself walk slowly to where Jack was standing.

"You planning on keeping him as a decoration?" Shepard asked, gesturing up at Vega. Jack chuckled, rolling her eyes up at the big solider.

"He is pretty decorative," Jack said. "I don't know. Keeping him up there is kind of a work out."

"Jack," Shepard said. Old habits die hard. Even though Shepard didn't technically have any command over her, Jack sighed and let Vega down. She didn't take him out of stasis. But Shepard assumed that would wear off on its own. She let it go.

Jack grinned, and winked at her. Alarm bells started sounding in Shepard's head. That was all the warning she had before Jack threw a Warp field right at Kaidan's head.

Her hand went to a gun that wasn't there. Her fist curled, bare, and she was about to go after Jack - against all better judgment, because even naked Jack would be armed to take down an Atlas - out of pure instinct before her brain caught up with her. Jack wasn't really attacking Kaidan. This was something else. Because if Jack was going to attack Kaidan, ever, she wouldn't do it from within arm's reach of Shepard. And she sure as hell wouldn't do it when Garrus was within gunshot range of her precious students.

Ruefully, Shepard had to acknowledge that even after all this time together, it was logic and not bare trust that saw her through that moment.

Kaidan, for his part, had a barrier up and ready to absorb the hit before it even reached him. He dropped a chunk of glowing purple bread to his plate- he was mid-bite when she hit him. That was why she'd used Warp, Shepard realized. No blowback. No splatter. No ricochet.

"Psychotic Biotic," Kaidan yelled. She wasn't sure if he was calling Jack out or cursing her. Shepard looked up to see him standing on top of the table. Tali was holding her head in her hand in exasperation. Garrus was still eating, totally unfazed. Of course he was. "At least you're picking on someone your own size."

"Only one around here that's my size is your mom," Jack said. That was just not true. Shepard sighed. This wasn't her ship. Or her crew. And it wasn't a real fight, whatever it was. She was just a bystander.

She did _not like_ being a bystander.

"That's a bit below the belt, don't you think?" Kaidan shouted back. They had the full, undivided attention of everyone in the clearing now. No one was even eating anymore. What was it Kaidan had said, about throwing someone across the room being a decent attention grabber?

Remembering that, she had some idea of what was going to happen next.

"You want to talk below the belt?" Jack said, licking her top lip. Then she sent out a Throw, knocking Kaidan back off the table. He came up glowing purple, his brows drawn down, and he sent out his own Throw, knocking Jack ten feet back. Blue fire erupted around her.

Wait, what was their plan for dialing this back?

Shepard sighed, again, and tapped a nearby student on the shoulder. He started and looked up at her, his eyes wide. She attempted a reassuring smile.

"May I borrow your sidearm?" she said. He fumbled with his holster, pressing the Carnifex pistol into her hand. She pulled a Lift field, pointed it in Kaidan's direction, and drew a bead on Jack's rising torso with the gun. She stood with one weapon pointed at each. She didn't have to be precise with the Lift field, she just had to let it go. She kept her eyes on Jack.

"No fair coming down on your boyfriend's side," Jack said.

"If this were a real fight, sure," Shepard said. Her voice was pitched low but she knew it would carry. The whole clearing was entirely silent. "Maybe I'd have to be impartial. But you guys are just messing around. And you're interrupting my dinner."

"You're drawing on me cuz I'm interrupting your dinner?" Jack said. There was a glittering edge of anger in her voice, and Shepard knew the gun pissed her off in ways that a biotic attack never would. Old reflexes.

"I'm just trying to get your attention," Shepard said. She deliberately lowered the gun before she dispersed the Lift field. "We both know a pistol couldn't take you down, even if that was what I wanted."

"Damn right," Jack muttered, mollified. She turned her attention to the crowd of rapt students. "Okay, you guys saw what Major Alenko did with his barriers at the beginning of the fight? Until your barrier goes up that fast, that strong, your barrier is shit. You thought you were big stuff for living through the Reaper War, but we're just getting started. Everything you're going to deal with from this point on is going to be a lot less predictable than an artillery strike. What you're going to do after you clean up your dishes is you're going to follow Major Alenko for barrier drills."

A murmur started around the edges of the crowd. It gradually grew almost to its former volume. Shepard handed the young soldier back his pistol and smiled at Jack.

"That was clever. They wouldn't have known what to look for, what they were looking for, until they saw a real good barrier in action," Shepard said. Jack grinned at her.

"Here I thought you'd be pissed that I got your boy in the plums," Jack said. Shepard glanced back at Kaidan. He was talking with Tali and Garrus, standing straight and tall and completely all right.

"If it affects his performance I might take that out on you," Shepard said, lightly. She saw a solider near them shaking with laughter. This wasn't the place to air the reflexive rage she'd felt when Jack hit him with that first Warp.

Vega was rolling his shoulders experimentally. Being in a stasis field could leave a weird tingle for hours. But it was just a side effect, it didn't mean anything. He grinned. She could have sworn he was about to start in with his habitual, meaningless flirting. Maybe say something about her working out her frustrations with him. But he just looked at Jack and said nothing.

Wasn't that interesting?

"Did you know you were part of a three ring circus, Vega?" Shepard said. He shrugged his massive shoulders.

"Wasn't my first time getting tossed around by a beautiful woman," Vega said. "Probably won't be my last."

"Probably not," Jack agreed, blandly.

"What did you say to piss her off, Vega?" Shepard asked, curious. He shook his head.

"It's what she said." The big Marine shrugged again. Usually he was a lot more glib than this. "She asked if I wanted to demonstrate a hold to the kids."

What, no line about Jack holding him?

Was he sick?

They both just stood there, uncharacteristically silent. She backed away and left them to it. Whatever was happening was way outside her expertise.

It took almost an hour to clean up after dinner, and several more hours for Kaidan to wear the students out with biotic drills. She finally found him on a bench in the barn, long after the sun went down. He was by himself. A yellow light shone down from the ceiling, bare and dim, but it gilded the little hairs on his arms. He sat with his arms flung wide, his legs spread out, head thrown back in exhaustion. And abandon. How long since she'd seen him just relaxed?

His eyes were closed, but he heard her. His eyes slitted open. But when he saw who it was he closed them again and smiled.

"Hello, beautiful," he said, softly. "Hell of a long day."

"A good day," she agreed. She sat down next to him. Crickets made a cheerful buzzing cacophony outside. The wind smelled like plants and people, like new growth. She thought of the little chapel covered in greenery.

"Hey, Kaidan?" she said, her voice soft. He quirked his eyebrows to indicate he was listening. "Want to get married?"

His eyes popped open. He stared at the light above them.

"Huh," he said.

Slow, silent heartbeats passed, getting slower. She tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey, now, what's this?" she said. She covered the sudden anxiety roiling her stomach with a smile. "Did I kill you? Shock you to death at last?"

"No, I just. . ." Kaidan cleared his throat and looked at her at last. "That wasn't how I pictured that moment."

"Sorry," she said. "It never seemed like the time, before, when we were on the battlefield."

"I wasn't thinking of doing it when we were under fire," Kaidan smiled. Then he laughed. "But God, yeah, I can see you doing that. I was picturing something with more flowers."

"Sorry," she said again. He took her hand, and he kissed it. Just like that day back in Apollo's.

"No, don't be, I don't mean you should have gotten me flowers," he said. His brown eyes were very earnest, looking into hers. "I mean, I always figured I'd get you flowers. Or find a field of them. Or . . . I was thinking apple blossoms? I don't know."

"You wanted to ask me?" she said, some of the tight panic in her stomach loosening. Asking had felt like the most natural thing in the world, but then his response. . .

"Yeah, you're kind of stealing my thunder, Shepard." Kaidan pulled a small dark blue box out of his pants pocket. Her heart pounded so hard she could almost taste her pulse. "I, uh, I got this today. I was thinking about all the things I never got to say to you. Or do with you. All the things I would have regretted if you'd died in the Citadel. And I thought, yeah, okay, first chance. So here we are."

"First chance to ask me to marry you?" she breathed. "What about yesterday in the shuttleport?"

"No ring," he said. And he kissed her. She melted against him. But then, laughing, she drew away. And poked him hard in the side.

"Well, too bad, because you're slow off the mark," she said. "I asked first."

"Doesn't count," Kaidan said, grinning at her. "You don't have a ring. Marry me?"

"Hey," she laughed, but then he was kissing her, and laughing with her, and nothing else mattered.


End file.
